Top your favorite sushi rolls or noodles with our homemade soy-free eel sauce (unagi sauce). This sauce is super easy to make with 3 to 4 easy-to-find ingredients.
My family loves fresh sushi, it’s one of our favorite meals. One day I was scrolling through Instagram and came across a video of another food blogger making eel sauce with a few simple ingredients, no eel.
Who knew it was so easy to make eel sauce? I didn’t!
I always assumed that eel sauce was made with eel (like oyster sauce has oyster juice), and for some reason I had never bothered to look up the ingredients. I was surprised to find that it is made with easy-to-find ingredients and that I could make it myself at home.
Since my daughter and I are allergic to soy and we love sushi, she asked me to make her some soy-free eel sauce at home, so we found a simple recipe and adapted it to be soy free.
What is eel sauce (unagi sauce)?
Eel sauce is a sweet and savory sauce that’s often used over sushi but is also delicious over noodles. Eel sauce is also called unagi sauce (or unagi no tare in Japanese) and is traditionally used on cooked eel.
Unlike oyster sauce which actually contains oyster juices, eel sauce doesn’t have eel or any seafood in the sauce itself. Eel sauce is usually made with mirin, sugar, soy sauce, and sometimes sake.
Eel sauce/unagi sauce is different than teriyaki sauce which is similar (thick, sweet, and salty), but usually has added ingredients for flavor like garlic, ginger, etc.
Our eel sauce isn’t traditional since we made changes to suit allergies and availability, but it is delicious and super easy to make!
How to make homemade eel sauce
Here are the steps for making soy-free eel sauce at home (this is just an overview, the full recipe card is at the end of the post):
- In a small saucepan (about 1 quart in size or smaller), whisk together the coconut aminos (and soy-free tamari if using), mirin, and sugar.
- Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then lower the heat to medium-low or low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring regularly. Make sure this is a low simmer to avoid scorching.
- If you want a thicker sauce, you can simmer for an additional 5 minutes or whisk in a pinch of cornstarch.
- Allow to cool completely. Once cooled completely and chilled, the eel sauce will thicken.
- Use the eel/unagi sauce to top sushi, noodles, veggies, and more!
When this is first done cooking, it won’t be very thick. This will thicken once it cools completely, so trust the process and allow it to cool to reach full thickness.
I did several different test batches with this recipe and I prefer the taste of it made with only coconut aminos, but if you like a lot more umami and salt, you can replace half the coconut aminos with San-J no-soy tamari, or replace a few Tablespoons of the coconut aminos with the no-soy tamari.
The San-J no soy tamari is also gluten free as well, so they do not use wheat ingredients in that version of tamari!
Ingredient notes for this recipe
Traditional unagi sauce uses mirin, or sweet rice wine. I tested this recipe with both aji-mirin (which can be used as a replacement that is less expensive and has less alcohol in it) and Mizkan mirin.
I used the Kikkoman Manjo aji-mirin in my first batches of sauce, I am not quite sure if it is gluten-free since it includes glucose syrup but doesn’t list the source of the glucose syrup (some products use glucose syrup from wheat).
For my last batch of eel sauce, I used the Mizkan mirin that still has corn syrup in it but no glucose syrup, and the ingredients look like it’s gluten free (although it’s not labeled gluten free).
Some of the mirin brands (like Eden) that I found without glucose I couldn’t confirm are gluten free. The natural mirin brands might not have syrups in them, so they may be less thick than the Mizkan mirin, and may result in a less thick sauce.
I would not try using seasoned rice vinegar in place of the mirin, I tried that in my first batch and it was way too vinegary. Sweet rice vinegar is definitely not a good substitute for mirin!
Mirin has alcohol in it, but that will be dissipated while cooking, so you don’t need to worry about your sauce having alcohol in it.
This recipe would go great with our Asian-style meatballs and our smoked salmon poke!
Homemade Soy Free Eel Sauce (Unagi Sauce)
Ingredients
- ½ cup coconut aminos* (can replace some or all of this with San-J no-soy tamari)
- ½ cup Mizkan mirin (don't sub rice vinegar)
- ½ cup sugar (I use unbleached Zulka sugar)
Instructions
- In a small saucepan (about 1 quart in size or smaller), whisk together the coconut aminos (and soy-free tamari if using), mirin, and sugar.
- Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then lower the heat to medium-low or low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring regularly. Make sure this is a low simmer to avoid scorching.
- If you want a thicker sauce, you can simmer for an additional 5 minutes or whisk in a pinch of cornstarch.
- Allow to cool completely. Once cooled completely and chilled, the eel sauce will thicken.
- Use the eel/unagi sauce to top sushi, noodles, veggies, and more.
- Store in an airtight container or jar in the fridge for up to 1 month.
Notes
Nutrition
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Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie which she founded in 2011. Sarah is based in Wyoming and has been managing food allergies for herself and her 2 children for over 20 years. Sarah was also a certified personal trainer for 12 years, as well as a group fitness instructor, health coach, running coach, and fitness nutrition specialist.