Today we are making a great savory Japanese Tare Sauce. “What is a tare sauce?” Have you been to a Sushi Restaurant and really enjoyed the sauce that was used as a glaze on the eel nigiri? It is called tare, or unagi no tare. If you enjoy going out for sushi, you definitely should try the unagi. Don’t worry if you are thinking that you may not like a sauce that is made from eel! No Problem! There is no eel in the sauce. Tare is used to glaze the eel. The sauce is very similar to a “teriyaki” and is used on proteins such as chicken, shrimp, or salmon as a dipping or finishing sauce. Today we are going to use the sauce in preparing our chicken stir fry.

My Chicken Stir Fry with Veggies Using a Tare Sauce

What are the Ingredients in a Tare Sauce

The main ingredients of a tare sauce would be Mirin, Shoyu, Sake, and Sugar. Simple, right?? Yes, it is, however, there are many versions of a tare sauce. I have included some additional ingredients for you to make your sauce more savory such as ginger, dashi, and togarashi. (Try to find a Japanese Shoyu Sauce at your local store. It will taste different than the typical Chinese soy sauce that you find at all markets.) Once you make this tare, you will never go out and buy a store-bought teriyaki sauce again!

The Japanese Shoyu, Dashi, and Mirin that I bought at my local Asian Market

We are going to glaze the chicken with our tare and cook it on the grill to obtain that sweet and savory flavor you want from a stir fry. Once we grill our chicken we will set it aside and add it to the veggies at the very end. The sauce will thicken as it sits. And that’s ok. It will easily brush onto the chicken and veggies to give us a spectacular finishing glaze!

Cooking the Tare down to Reduce and Thicken

We have put our tare through a strainer to give us the perfect sauce to brush onto our chicken

Adding the Grill Glazed Chicken to our Veggies

Look at that Glaze!!

Use your favorite veggies that you prefer for your stir fry. Three or four veggies should be sufficient in making a great meal for you and the family! I hope you enjoy the recipe and as always, thanks for Spending Time in My Kitchen! Don’t forget to leave your comments below and let me know how you used the Tare Sauce in your recipes!

Check out my recipe here for Pork and Shrimp Shumai Meatballs! The Tare Sauce would taste awesome with these meatballs.

Savory Japanese Tare Sauce and Stir Fry

Recipe by David Frank – Spending Time In My Kitchen

0.0 from 0 votes

Servings

4 to 6

servings

Prep time

minutes

Cooking time

minutes

Ingredients

Tare Sauce
1 Cup “Hon” Mirin (See note below)
1 Cup Sake (suggested – Junmai Ginjo)
1/3 Cup Shoyu (Japanese-style soy sauce)
4 Tbl Brown sugar
2 Green onions, large cuts
Optional Savory Ingredients for Tare Sauce
1/4 Cup Dashi
Togarashi
1 Tbl Black peppercorns
2 inch Ginger, Cut into Thin round slices
See note below
Stir Fry Ingredients
2 lbs Chicken breast or thighs, cut into approximately 1″ to 2″ inch chunks
8 oz Broccoli cut into florets
8 oz Green Beans, frozen or fresh
1 Red Bell Pepper, cut into slices
1/2 Yellow onion cut into half-moon slices
2 Carrots, cut into rounds
2 Stalks Green onion, cut into 2″ to 3″ inch slices

Directions

Making Your Tare
Add all ingredients to your saucepan. Cook on the stove on medium heat until the sauce thickens. Let your sauce reduce to half. Approximately 20 minutes. Give the sauce a taste and add additional brown sugar if you like your sauce a little sweeter. Pull from heat. (You can use the carcass from a roasted/grilled chicken to add additional flavor to your tare.)
Strain after cooking. Let the sauce cool for 3 hours. It will thicken more as it cools.
MAKING THE STIR FRY
Grill the Chicken
Cut the chicken into small 2″ x 2″ chunks. Brush and baste the chicken with your tare sauce.
Add chicken to a hot grill and cook until nicely charred. Don’t overcook. The chicken will continue to cook when placed into the wok with the veggies at the end.
When the cook is complete, remove from the grill and either wrap the cooked chicken in foil or place the chicken in a warm oven.
Cooking the Veggies
Cut your veggies as detailed in the ingredient list above. Add ice water to a large bowl and set aside.
Add water to a pan. Set on the stove and turn the heat to high.
Add broccoli and beans into the pan with the boiling water and “blanch” the veggies. Once they are cooked and nicely green, (approximately 5 minutes). Remove them from the pot and place them into the ice water to stop their cooking. Set them aside.
Add a couple of tablespoons of oil to a large wok if available. Otherwise, use a large saute pan. Give the carrots a little headstart in cooking since they will take a little longer to cook and add them to the pan. Cook the carrots for about 5 minutes. Add remaining veggies to the pan and stir until al dente.
Take your chicken out of the warm oven/foil and place the chicken into the wok.
Add enough of your tare sauce to the wok to coat all your veggies and the chicken.
Continue to stir the veggies in your wok until everything has come to temperature and you are ready to serve.
Place veggies and chicken on plates or a serving tray. Brush on a little more tare. Have some sauce on the side in case someone in the family desires some additional sauce. Enjoy!!

Notes

If you really want to get adventurous you can grill/roast fish bones, a chicken carcass, or pork bones to add to your tare sauce while the sauce is cooking. Adding the bones to your sauce will help to infuse additional umami flavoring.
I recommend you pay close attention to the ingredients that are on the bottle of Mirin you have in your pantry. You want to use Hon mirin which means literally: true/genuine mirin, which is a naturally fermented sweet rice wine. It is manufactured from sweet rice and rice koji. Less expensive mirin will include unwanted ingredients such as Glucose, Corn Syrup, and Water.