What Do Eels Have To Do With Eel Sauce, Actually?

Walk into any sushi restaurant these days, even one that shares its menu with burgers (a big red flag), and you'll likely end up ordering a roll or two that features eel sauce. Savory, sweet, and definitely umami, this glossy sauce is right up there with soy and yum yum sauces as a favorite Asian condiment (and just like soy sauce, it's a mistake to put too much on your sushi). But if you were afraid to order anything with it because you were squicked out by the idea of ingesting eels, boy, do we have good news for you.

Eel sauce doesn't actually contain any eel — it's so named because in Japanese cuisine it is traditionally used over unagi and anago, both of which are grilled eel. It's also known as unagi no tare, where "unagi" means "eel" and "tare" means sauce, and it can be called kabayaki sauce, too, for the method by which grilled eels may be prepared and cooked. While recipes may differ from chef to chef, it typically contains soy sauce (which is different from tamari) or dark soy sauce, a sweet rice wine called mirin, sake, and sugar.

This sweet and savory sauce started out the sole domain of grilled eel dishes, but its deliciousness could not be contained. Somewhere along the line, as its popularity crossed the globe, people started using it on anything that needed a flavor boost, from vegetables to different proteins, and yes, to sushi (even the sushi at the all-you-can-eat buffet).

Thanks to its simplicity, you don't have to buy it (though you can, like this Otafuku Eel Sauce for Sushi Rolls) or visit a Japanese restaurant to enjoy it — you can make a version of eel sauce in your own kitchen. If you cook Asian cuisine at all, you likely already have the aforementioned ingredients. You literally just put them in a pot on the stove, bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to low, reducing until it reaches your preferred texture (it is best, however, if it reaches the consistency where it doesn't immediately run off the back of a spoon). If you don't like how thin it is? Keep reducing it. If you over-reduce it? Add small amounts of water until it has reached the thickness you want.

Because it contains a decent amount of sugar and a lot of salt from the soy sauce, eel sauce can keep for a while in the fridge — up to three weeks, in fact, as long as it's stored in an airtight container. Actually, at some established restaurants in Japan that focus on unagi, the eel sauce might be centuries old, thanks to the salt/sugar content and a sterilization process. We don't recommend trying to keep your eel sauce around for that long, though.