How To Thicken Store-Bought Teriyaki Sauce Without Compromising Flavor

Often consisting of ingredients like soy sauce, sugar, rice wine, and garlic, bottled teriyaki sauce is a great addition to your pantry. The versatile sauce works well with different types of meat and stir fry preparations, or it can accompany foods like dumplings and chicken wings to enhance flavor. Store-bought brands are convenient, but they might not offer the desired consistency, as some sauces can be a little thin and watery. In this case, incorporating cornstarch can boost the thickness of the sauce without impacting its flavor.

In addition to cornstarch's ability to create an irresistible crunchy texture on fried dumplings, it's also an excellent thickening agent for stews, soups, and even sauces. For the best results, you'll need to create a slurry consisting of cornstarch and water, as adding the cornstarch directly to teriyaki sauce could cause unwanted lumps. After mixing the cornstarch and water until smooth, the slurry can then be whisked in to your teriyaki sauce for an improved consistency.

Much like cornstarch, flour also has the ability to create a thicker consistency when it comes to teriyaki sauce. In this case, you can combine flour and melted butter to make a roux, which calls for an equal portion of butter and flour. To make a roux, melt butter in a pan, then add flour and mix until fully incorporated. There's also a nifty microwave hack to make the perfect roux in seconds.

Adding just butter to the sauce won't necessarily cause it to become thicker, but it can create a more pleasing consistency. With this method, simply heat up the teriyaki sauce and mix in some butter until you're satisfied with the texture. Egg yolks are another option, but you need to be careful about how much you use to avoid inadvertently making scrambled teriyaki eggs. You can prevent kitchen catastrophe by heating a small portion of teriyaki sauce with an egg yolk, then adding that mixture to the rest of the sauce to thicken it.

You may encounter a brand of teriyaki sauce that's just a touch too thin for your liking. In this instance, you might be able to amend the consistency without incorporating any new ingredients. Simmering sauces gets rid of some of the excess liquid by evaporating it, which in turn makes for a more robust sauce. That means you can confidently add the sauce to a teriyaki tofu and charred broccoli recipe without concerns about a thin consistency ruining the dish.

Reducing a sauce is pretty easy; simply add the teriyaki sauce to a pan over medium-high heat and start stirring. You may need to turn down the heat to spare it from being burned, but continue to stir until the sauce is thickened to your liking. It's possible for a sauce to become thicker once it's pulled from the heat, so you may want to stop just before reaching the desired consistency. With these trusted methods, you'll have numerous foolproof ways to rescue store-bought teriyaki sauce.