ISO alternative to soy sauce

seeker

Tue, May 31 2016, 10:20 pm

New allergy, yay! Lots of my favorite recipes involve soy sauce, though. What am I going to do? Is there something else that can achieve a similar effect? That doesn't involve any nuts, dairy, or mustard?!

MagentaYenta

Tue, May 31 2016, 10:20 pm

Braggs Aminos?

Last edited by MagentaYenta on Tue, May 31 2016, 10:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

tichellady

Tue, May 31 2016, 10:21 pm

Coconut Aminos-similar but sweeter than soy sauce

seeker

Tue, May 31 2016, 10:27 pm

Thanks. I never heard of that stuff. Where do you buy it? Will have to try... sigh.

MagentaYenta

Tue, May 31 2016, 10:31 pm

I buy Braggs at my grocery store. Try a health food store.

out-of-towner

Tue, May 31 2016, 10:55 pm

No ideas, just ((((((((((hugs))))))))))!

Maybe a naturally flavored salt such as Himalayan Pink Salt or a black salt can imitate the flavor just a little bit?

tichellady

Tue, May 31 2016, 11:00 pm

Brags is not soy free- coconut aminos from whole foods

ra_mom

Tue, May 31 2016, 11:27 pm

seeker wrote:

Here's a great soy free teriyaki sauce.
http://www.joyofkosher.com/rec.....auce/
Play around with combination of ume plum vinegar and toasted sesame oil. Not an exact substitute but the best I've found and for some recipes where soy is not the center but gives depth this works great and for others you're better off expanding your palettes and finding different flavors. Hug

We were soy free and dairy free for 6 years due to dd strong allergy intolerances so I understand some of what it's like Crying

AlwaysThinking

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 2:32 am

I found coconut aminos to be too weak of a flavor - its so expensive and was using half a bottle per recipe..

I had success with using silan and salt mixed together, and then when cooking a stir fry etc. I add sesame oil, a little bit of vinegar, ginger, garlic etc. just to reinforce the asian taste.

Mrs Bissli

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 8:44 am

Rice or barley only miso? Vegetarian oyster or fish sauce? ?

chani8

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 8:49 am

Riff wrote:

I had success with using silan and salt mixed together, and then when cooking a stir fry etc. I add sesame oil, a little bit of vinegar, ginger, garlic etc. just to reinforce the asian taste.

What Riff said. When we were off soy sauce, silan (date honey) with salt and ginger worked fine for me. I like a bit of hot red pepper, too.

aussie2

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 12:40 pm

teryaki sauce tastes different but if you like the taste it should work with many of the same recipes.. it works w/ fish,chicken etc

ra_mom

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 1:11 pm

aussie2 wrote:

teryaki sauce tastes different but if you like the taste it should work with many of the same recipes.. it works w/ fish,chicken etc

Teriyaki sauce is made from soy sauce (and sugar, garlic...)

Mrs Bissli

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 1:27 pm

How can I forget this one: MARMITE (or Vegemite)!! But use sparingly.

applecake

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 4:58 pm

Tamari is your answer. I'm a Celiac and can't do the wheat in soy sauce, but Tamari is wheat free and there is really very little difference, I think. I buy mine at Target, so I'm sure you can find it easily.

rofa

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 4:59 pm

Love coconut aminos! But it is a bit pricey.

https://jet.com/product/detail.....aw.ds

mha3484

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 5:01 pm

Is the allergy wheat or soy? That makes a big difference.

ra_mom

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 5:01 pm

applecake wrote:

Tamari is soy based too.

applecake

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 5:09 pm

Ha, I assumed it wasn't a soy allergy -- I guess that was a weird assumption, wasn't it? I guess she didn't say. But tamari is still great. Smile

seeker

Wed, Jun 01 2016, 11:51 pm

The allergy is soy. We're avoiding wheat just to see what happens though now that we know about the soy allergy it is entirely possible that all the issues were because of the very slight amount of soy that was in our diet but not enough to trigger a noticeable allergy attack (deciding to almost stop breathing in middle of the night got our attention pretty effectively though.)

The silan idea is really surprising. I never thought of soy sauce as sweet, and dates certainly are. The thought is weird enough to try!

I'm going to guess that what I'm missing is umami, and if I can get into another flavor of that then maybe we won't need soy anymore. It's just that I'm so used to using it that I am going to have to learn to ride a different type of bike now. I know just which recipes to add it to and just about how much will do it. It's just familiar like that. Also handy when you don't have anything specific in mind - about to grill chicken cutlets, not in the mood for boring, too rushed/lazy to go for a recipe, so just splash some soy sauce on it. Stir fry - cut vegetables, just add soy sauce.

This is not a disaster but it is really annoying and I am so not in the mood for annoying at this stage of life :roll I feel like I'm being a big baby about this but after 4 years of nut and mustard paranoia, combing all the labels and half the time putting it right back on the shelf, worrying about those and scanning for them every time we go to anyone else's home or eatery, and finally thinking I'm thoroughly used to it, adding something else to the list is kind of an unexpected curveball. It's also very unsettling to realize that if this just happened, who knows what will be the next thing that suddenly stops being harmless? UGH.

Anyway, I got derailed. What does marmite taste like? I am going to go google what on earth it even is.