The 2-Ingredient Formula For Easy At-Home Teriyaki Sauce

Teriyaki sauce is a beloved restaurant staple. It's also an easy way to add some oomph to chicken wings, pork cutlets, or stir-fries. It's often sold in bottles in the U.S., but making it at home is almost as easy as unscrewing a cap. We've shared our own version of chicken teriyaki with easy homemade sauce before, but as TikToker @hey.im.rach shared in a viral video, you only really need two ingredients. 

"In case your mom didn't teach you, soy sauce and brown sugar for homemade teriyaki sauce" reads onscreen text as the TikToker heats soy sauce and sugar in a saucepan, writing, "Add sugar until it's the flavor you want! It's more than you'd think" in the comments. Some commenters recommended adding garlic, ginger, onion powder, or MSG. 

Is that really all you need for teriyaki sauce? Yes and no. There is no one recipe for teriyaki sauce. Technically, the word "teriyaki" doesn't refer to a specific sauce at all. It's actually a method of glazing meat: In Japanese, "teri" means "shiny," "yaki" means grilled. In Japan, recipes vary from family to family, and Japanese-American communities in Hawaii and Seattle adapted teriyaki sauce, too. Feel free to experiment with your sauce — as long as you end up with a shiny finish and a sweet and salty taste, you can't go wrong.

That said, most teriyaki sauces are slightly more complex. Both Japanese and American teriyaki sauces tend to add sake and mirin to the sugar and soy blend. If the two-ingredient sauce seems lacking, combine a 1:1:1 ratio of sake, mirin, and soy sauce. You might want to cut back on the sugar, though, as mirin is already sweet. Season, to taste, with garlic, ginger, or onion. For a thicker, American-style sauce, add a cornstarch slurry. 

No sake or mirin? Both types of wine are easy to find and easy to substitute. Just remember: Mirin is sweet and sake is (usually) dry. Ideally, go for something with a high alcohol content. Both sake and mirin have more alcohol than grape wine, which gives them a stronger flavor. White cooking wine is a good match, especially Shaoxing cooking wine, which is also made from rice. Sherry and vermouth will work, too. If you're not keen on alcohol, try unflavored, unsweetened kombucha or diluted rice wine vinegar.