This umami-rich vegan tsuyu sauce comes from chef Tony Mongeluzzi of Avant Garden. He showed us how to use it in the restaurant’s celery root pasta (perfect for vegetarian Thanksgiving!), but it’s also great as a dipping sauce for dumplings or noodles, or simply for adding rich, deep flavor to lots of vegetarian and vegan dishes. This makes a restaurant-size batch, but you can always freeze any leftovers for later use. If you go that route, try freezing it in ice cube trays and storing the frozen cubes in a plastic bag or other container so you can portion it out easily when you need it. Or, just halve the ingredients, or even cut them down by a third, to maker smaller batches of sauce.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Total: 20 min, plus cooling time (overnight)
- Active: 5 min
Ingredients (6)
- 60 pieces of dried shiitake
- 10 pieces of kombu
- 3 liters water
- 6 cups sake
- 9 cups white soy sauce
- 9 cups mirin
Instructions
- Bring all ingredients to a boil in a large stock pot (or smaller pan, if only making half or one third batch). Turn off heat and let pot sit overnight.
- Strain the solids and keep the liquid to use as a dipping sauce, a base for other sauces, sautéeing vegetables, etc. It’s basically a secret weapon umami-bomb for bringing great flavor to everything it touches.
Image courtesy of japanesecooking101.
