What is Oyster Sauce, Where to Buy It, Recipes to Make with It (2024)

FAQs

What dishes do you use oyster sauce in? ›

The most common uses for oyster sauce include stir-fry sauces, glazes, and marinades. Oyster sauce flavors chicken, beef, vegetables like broccoli, noodles, and rice dishes. It is an important component to cashew chicken and even a type of radish cake. Make homemade hoisin sauce or teriyaki sauce by using oyster sauce.

Finally, you can use it straight up or slightly diluted as a drizzle over steamed veggies (usually Chinese broccoli), but I highly recommend using the premium LKK oyster sauce for this. The other brands I find too salty.

Oyster sauce is a nutritional powerhouse that offers vital vitamins and minerals for your health and enhances traditional Indian dishes. According to research by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), it is a source of iron, calcium, potassium, and essential vitamins that enrich your daily diet.

Gently salty and briny, with a velvety smooth, thick texture, oyster sauce is in a number of Asian dishes. The condiment brings rich, savory flavor to whatever you pour it over or into – from Chinese broccoli to stir-fry marinades – and it's a mainstay in many Asian and Asian American kitchens.

As a no-frills (read: lazy) home cook whose go-to recipes are all under 20 minutes, I tend to throw a few tablespoons of oyster sauce into whatever's cooking in my pan—vegetables, minced pork, tofu, instant noodles, fried rice… everything!

Oyster sauce: 18 to 24 months; 3 to 6 months. Peanut butter: 1 year when stored in refrigerator and 3 to 4 months refrigerated after opening (natural); 6 to 9 months when stored in pantry or 12 months stored in refrigerator, 2 to 3 months in pantry or 3 to 4 months refrigerated after opening (commercial, stabilised).

For the freshest tasting sauce, we recommend using the sauces within one month of opening.

Often used as a cooking ingredient, oyster sauce has a richer and more intense taste than hoisin but it does not have the sweetness. If you want to cook with an oyster sauce substitute, hoisin sauce works fine if you like a sweet, tangy flavor.

If you have high blood pressure, you must consume the Oyster sauce in limited quantities. Also, sauce consumption leads to an increase in uric acid, and if you overeat, it will have adverse effects on your body.

The presence of magnesium and potassium also help to lower blood pressure and iron helps carry oxygen to blood cells. Oysters are also high in potassium, magnesium, and omega-3 fatty acids which help reduce the overall risk of stroke and heart attack. They are also effective at lowering blood pressure.

Can you eat too much oyster sauce? ›

Consumption of two teaspoons of oyster sauce per meal would almost reach the upper limit for sodium intake, according to the 15 samples of sauces tested.

Refrigeration not needed

Common condiments that don't require refrigeration include soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, honey and hot sauce. Feingold says vinegars and olive oil (stored in a cool, dark place) are pantry-bound; coconut oil is actually best kept out of the fridge since it hardens below room temperature.

“So, you accidentally leave an opened bottle of ketchup out on the counter overnight. Is that a food safety risk? No. But the manufacturer might have a label on it that says 'refrigerator after opening' because they want to reduce the likelihood of spoilage,” Snyder says.

Tips when using oyster sauce

Always add it at the end of braising or cooking soup. Do not cook oyster sauce over high heat – it will lose its flavor and turn bitter. Using oyster sauce to marinate will eliminate fishiness from meat and seafood, as well as enhance its flavor. Oyster sauce is quite salty.

Because it combines sweet and savory flavors, hoisin sauce is different from the saltier oyster sauce. Hoisin sauce is sweeter than its counterpart, so oyster sauce would not give your cooking the same fragrant, sweet taste.

Oyster sauce: 18 to 24 months; 3 to 6 months. Peanut butter: 1 year when stored in refrigerator and 3 to 4 months refrigerated after opening (natural); 6 to 9 months when stored in pantry or 12 months stored in refrigerator, 2 to 3 months in pantry or 3 to 4 months refrigerated after opening (commercial, stabilised).

Flavor Profile: Oyster Sauce offers a sweet and salty flavor with an earthy undertone, while Fish Sauce is known for its prominent salty and nutty taste with a fishy aroma. The sweet flavor of Oyster Sauce is due to the caramelization process, contrasting with the salty flavor and fishy notes of Fish Sauce.

In the kitchen, oyster sauce is often a glaze or an addition to stir-fries, while fish sauce is more of a background player, enhancing soups and marinades with its briny depth. Understanding these sauces is crucial for anyone diving into Southeast Asian cuisine.