Looking to change up my soy sauce game from Kikkoman. Anyone ever try any of these, or could recommend a good premium brand?

28 comments

1. My only comment is that you absolutely should not use these more premium sauces everywhere. Dumping a bunch into nikujaga is a waste of good soy sauce; save it for when the soy sauce is the primary and possibly only seasoning (e.g. when used as a condiment or something like teriyaki). Kikkoman (or Yamasa, which I actually like more as a cheap soy sauce) is still good to keep around.

2. Well, there’s a pretty massive departure from kikkoman in terms of pricing with a few of these.
   Personally I’d go for something from japan, preferably organic.

   The last two options you shared are great soy sauces; but pretty spendy (last one is about $40 for soy sauce, which you probably wouldn’t catch most Japanese people paying).

   Personally my go to daily soy sauce is Yamasa Organic Marudaizu, which is about $15 for a 34oz bottle.

   Yamasa Organic Marudaizu Soy Sauce 34z https://a.co/d/4ODa8Rg

3. Trying to up your game by what measure? I mean, it’s pretty easy to spend money, but what are you trying to actually do?

   Otherwise, I agree with u/squeezyphresh, save the expensive stuff for when the flavor really needs to shine. Otherwise, Kikkoman is just fine. I’m pickling some daikon later today and no way I’d use a premium shoyu.

4. Yamaroku is my go-to for premium shouyu. Fermented for 4 years in inoculated wooden barrels. It’s amazing. But as another poster mentioned, it’s a waste to use it for many sauces, nabe, etc. It really shines when it can be the “punch” in moderately flavored dishes (like hiyayakko, sashimi, grilled shiitake, etc.). A little goes a long way, and it’s easy to overdo it and blow your taste buds out.

5. I highly recommend to switch to any salt reduced soy sauce that comes in glass bottle because of Microplastic. Thats premium for me.

6. We’ve become a household with a variety of soy sauce brands. We still have Kikkoman for large volume cooking like soy sauce chicken…really now it’s just soy sauce chicken. A Filipino household so we still have Silver Swan for certain Pinoy dishes. We also have some Chinese brands for chow mein etc, damn YouTube .

   For premium brand or premium enough for us we use [Yamasa Organic Marudaizu](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005Q3BSS4?ref_=cm_sw_r_apan_dp_18JKYFGVQ3ESVK91P8ME), a random pick from a local Japanese market, primarily for making our “soyrin,” 2:1:1::soy:mirin:sake for sashimi and whatever. Seems smooth compared to Kikkoman, very happy with it.

7. #5 is the best one

8. I like San-J as a cheaper brand. They have glass bottles and gluten-free stuff. And tamari!

9. I bought a big two pack of this stuff from costco [https://naturalfoodpantry.ca/products/san-j-tamari-sauce-296ml](https://naturalfoodpantry.ca/products/san-j-tamari-sauce-296ml)

   I keep it in the fridge and use it for most things. more complex than kikkoman and much less pricy than the nice stuff i was getting from the local japanese boutique

10. Kikkoman and Superior Light Soy are what I use. Premium stuff should be used very sparingly, for stuff that uses soy sauce as the dominating flavor, like for a pure shoyu tare

11. the Aloha would be good for daily use, the others I’d use for special meals.

12. What are some recommendations for something to shine for on some plain rice?

13. Mine IS the one on the 2nd photo but with 3 years of “maturation”. And it’s fucking delicious, I’m putting in it everywhere. Kikkoman looks like just some water and salt with it when you compare both of it. But, yeah, 8€ the 150ml bottle

14. I like Yamasa – I’d say start with the regular one and then experiment with the ones for sashimi or sushi: https://www.yamasa.com/english/products/retail/

15. Tomasu (brewed in Rotterdam) is the best I ever tasted

16. Lady two are great also try to find yuzu infused soy sauce

17. Aloha brand

18. Yamasa is great for utility. That white shoyu is fantastic for sashimi. Aloha is trash.

19. Kamada for when soy will shine on its own

20. Silver Swan soy sauce, its cheap but good! Doesn’t taste like brown saltwater, which is what kikkoman tastes like!

21. Following

22. Aloha brand is pretty watered down.

23. I switched to Yamasa from Kikkonan a few years back because I prefer the taste of Yamasa. My everyday soy sauce is Yamasa’s low sodium soy sauce and it doesn’t taste “less sodium” to me. Now if I were to make a fancy dish that called for a premium soy sauce if it were the main seasoning, I’d splurge for one.
    But for everyday cooking as an ingredient, fancy isnt necessary.

24. I always keep a large bottle of Kikkoman low sodium on hand. It’s just a solid all-around soy sauce. There’s a reason it’s essentially the standard. I do like trying other soy sauces, so I usually have something new I’m trying at any given time. The one I have right now was brewed and then aged in bourbon barrels in Kentucky.

    The other kind I always have on-hand is a good brewed dark soy sauce. My fav brand for that is Yamasa, but everyone seems to have their own opinions on soy sauce and I don’t think any of them are wrong.

25. You could just up your soy game by making seasoned soy.

    Dried shiitakes, katsuobushis, dried anchovies

26. I always use lee kum kee. I’ve always preferred it over kikkoman

27. Like many others, I use Yamasa simply because it’s cheap and good enough, it’s cost effective for many dishes.

    Don’t dismiss Kikkoman just because they are a major supplier, they actually sell soy sauces of various qualities, you’re just more likely to find them in Japanese stores than the typical “Asian” grocery stores that sell the international ones that are marketed for overseas.

28. I prefer a low sodium soy sauce.