Oyster sauce adds a rich umami depth and savory-sweet touch to homemade stir-fries, noodles, and marinades. Find the best oyster sauce today to take your home cooking to the next level.
With its salty-sweet flavors, oyster sauce can boost the umami notes of your favorite Asian-style dishes, such as fried noodles, black pepper sauce, and marinades for chicken and beef.
Oyster sauce boasts a syrup-like consistency with a taste that sits somewhere between soy sauce and BBQ sauce, making it the perfect addition to meat and anything cooked hot and fast.
In this article, we outline the best oyster sauce brands and store-bought options out there today to help you match the right one with your dish. Let’s get cooking!
Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand
Leem Kum Kee’s original-style oyster sauce is made of oyster extracts with no preservatives. Instead, it’s an all-purpose seasoning used for dipping, as a marinade, or as a glaze to add a delicious flavor and rich color to your plate.
The brand also offers a Premium version, made of the same ingredients but has a richer flavor. Moreover, there’s another version that contains less sodium and a vegan alternative.
It’s considered one of the best choices on the market with the authentic taste of oysters. It has a mild saltiness reminiscent of the ocean, ensuring it won’t overpower other flavors in your recipe. However, it contains monosodium glutamate as a flavor enhancer, which some people might be intolerant to, causing symptoms like headache, flushing, sweating, and fatigue.
Maekrua Thai Oyster Sauce
Hailing from Thailand, Makrua has long been one of the most popular oyster sauce brands. However, some find this sauce’s flavor too intense, and it contains more sodium than some of the other brands.
The recipe contains premium oyster extracts with soybean and cornstarch to give it a thick consistency. It is characterized by its rich umami taste and doesn’t contain preservatives or MSG. Nevertheless, it can be a bit hard to find.
Kikkoman Oyster-Flavored Sauce
This rich sauce adds a glossy sheen and tasty flavor to your recipes. With an authentic taste, this oyster sauce combines sweet and salty flavors and a rich texture, making it an excellent choice for all your Asian dishes.
Unlike some brands, this oyster sauce won’t add a fishy flavor, so it can be used as a dip. It’s free from artificial flavors and doesn’t contain MSG. However, it might contain some preservatives and higher amounts of sodium. There’s another red version, but this one is sweeter.
- Kikkoman is the trusted brand for high-quality Asian seasonings
- Made in America
Megashefu Oyster Sauce
This oyster sauce combines the umami flavor with hints of a smoky aroma from the wood shell. It’s dark and rich with a strong oyster taste without being too fishy. Some sweetness balances the intense flavor, making this sauce suitable for multiple recipes and dishes.
Thanks to its strong flavor, this oyster sauce adds umami and richness to tofu and vegetable dishes. It’s made of high-quality Thai oysters that simmer in an extraction process that takes six hours without adding additives or preservatives, with cornstarch to add thickness and improve its texture. This sauce might be harder to find and a little thinner than other oyster sauces on the market.
Dragonfly Premium
With a rich consistency and a tasty flavor, this oyster sauce is an excellent choice for meat and vegetable dishes. It’s also more affordable than most brands, so it’s a good choice if you want to save some cash. In addition, it specifically adds an original umami flavor to fusion recipes, making them taste more authentic.
Because of its thick flavor, this oyster sauce can be used as a dip or marinade. It contains no additives or preservatives, but it might not be easy to find. Moreover, it contains MSG and high levels of sodium.
- Premium oyster sauce, No MSG added
- Easy to use plastic squeeze bottle
- Trusted Dragonfly brand
Wok Mei Gluten-Free
You can still enjoy oyster sauce even if you’re intolerant to gluten because this sauce doesn’t contain any wheat. Instead, it contains a real oyster extract with some dried cane syrup to add sweetness. It also uses a 100% natural caramel color, so it will work for you if you want to avoid artificial colors and additives.
But with this sauce, you’ll have all the oyster sauce you need to marinate and glaze your food for the perfect taste and flavor. Yet, it has a molasses-like flavor and not enough oyster taste compared to other choices.
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Shirakiku Oyster Sauce
This oyster sauce balances a sweet and savory taste with a mild fishy flavor that other sauces lack. As a result, this will be the best enhancer for your seafood recipes as it boosts the taste and makes it richer. In addition, its strong nutty taste is an excellent choice for meat dishes, vegetables, and noodles, so it’s one of the most versatile ingredients in your kitchen.
It’s gluten-free, so it will work for you if you’re intolerant. It’s also free from GMOs and MSG. Yet, this oyster sauce contains high amounts of sodium and might not be easy to find.
What is Oyster Sauce and How is It Used in Cooking?
Although oyster sauce is of Chinese origin, it’s now used in many Asian cuisines, especially Thai and Vietnamese. There’s a story that a restaurateur called Mr. Lee Kum Sheung invented oyster sauce by mistake in 1888. He was boiling oyster soup and forgot about it until it simmered and became a delicious gravy. When he tasted it, he used it to flavor his recipes.
Oyster sauce is typically used for marinades, glazes, stir-fries, and noodles. It has a strong taste, so a little goes a long way, and it can be mixed with other sauces.
