An easy homemade teriyaki sauce that’s full of flavour and made without any nasty ingredients! Easily made gluten-free and vegan, it’s so good that you’ll never go back to store-bought.
I’ve got a quickie for you guys today!
Well, a quick recipe. And an easy one. And one I feel like should be a staple in everyone’s recipe books… at least if you like stir fries. Which I do.
Actually, stir fries were one of the only ways my mom could get me to eat vegetables as a child… and even then I’d do my best to pick out as many veggies as I could without it being too obvious. Except the carrots. Carrots were okay in my books.
Looking back at it, though, I’m pretty sure the only reason I tolerated veggies in stir fries were because they were covered in sauce. Homemade teriyaki sauce…
How To Make Healthy Homemade Teriyaki Sauce
It’s so quick and easy that I’m betting you never go back to the store-bought kind! So let’s start by talking about what goes into the sauce:
- I like to used a reduced-sodium soy sauce because I find the regular kind a little too overpoweringly salty for my tastes, and even so, the sauce is still pretty salty. And because most soy sauces contain wheat, be sure to use a certified gluten-free tamari if you need this sauce to be gluten-free.
- Most teriyaki sauce recipes call for water to dilute the soy sauce, but I like to use orange juice instead. I find it adds some extra sweetness, tanginess, and depth to the flavour.
- For sweetness, I use a combination of honey and coconut sugar because I find it gives the best taste and texture. If you need this sauce to be vegan, you can just use coconut sugar, but you need to increase the amount to 1/2 cup (100 g).
- Rice vinegar. Used mostly to balance out the sweetness. If you don’t have rice vinegar, you can substitute with apple cider.
- I know it’s a little bit of extra work, but fresh ginger and garlic really do make a difference. If you don’t have them on hand, you can use 1/2 tsp of each, ground.
- Cornstarch is used to thicken the sauce, otherwise it would be super runny instead of nice and saucy. Combine it with a tablespoon of water before adding it to the sauce just to get any clumps out and make sure it’s nice and smooth. And if you’re avoiding corn, arrowroot works fine as well.
See? All good stuff and none of the nasties that you often find in store-bought sauces.
Okay, But What’s It Like?
Salty. Sweet. Tangy… Saucy? There’s really not much else to say about a sauce.
I made a few different versions of this sauce and these quantities ended up being my favourite, but your tastebuds probably differ from mine so don’t be afraid to do some experimenting! Want a sweeter sauce? Add more sugar. Saltier? Add a few more splashes of soy sauce. Thicker? More cornstarch. That’s one of the best things about making things at home! Well, that and it lets you avoid a lot of the preservatives that end up in store-bought sauces.
As for how to use this sauce, my favourite is obviously in a stir fries (I’ve got a recipe coming up for you guys soon!), but it also works great as a marinate. I hope you love it!
Happy eating!
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easy homemade teriyaki sauce
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) reduced-sodium soy sauce or tamari*
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) orange juice
- 1/4 cup (80 g) honey**
- 2 Tbsp (24 g) coconut sugar**
- 1 Tbsp (15 ml) rice vinegar
- 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 1 Tbsp (7 g) cornstarch***
- 1 Tbsp (15 ml) water
Instructions
- In a small saucepan set over medium heat, combine the soy sauce, orange juice, honey, sugar, vinegar, ginger, and garlic. Bring it to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally.
- In a small bowl, combine the cornstarch and water, mixing until smooth. Add this mixture to the sauce, stirring occasionally, until the sauce begins to thicken, about 1 minute.
- Remove the sauce from the heat and let it cool completely before transferring it to a sealed container and storing in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Use as desired.
Notes
* Use a certified gluten-free tamari if you need this to be gluten-free. I also recommend using a reduced-sodium version so that you have more control over how salty it is.
** Omit the honey and increase the sugar to 1/2 cup (100 g) if you need this sauce to be vegan.
*** You can use arrowroot powder instead.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 5 mins
Looking for more tasty vegan recipes? Try one of these!
Healthy Vegan Mac & Cheese
Loaded Sweet Potato Nachos
Instant Pot Black Bean Burrito Bowls
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This is exactly what I’ve been looking for! It’s so hard to find store-bought sauces without nasty ingredients, so an easy, homemade version that’s also gluten-free and vegan sounds perfect. I can’t wait to give this flavourful recipe a try. Thanks for sharing!
Homemade teriyaki that is both gluten-free and vegan is exactly what I was looking for. Using simple pantry ingredients makes it so much better than the bottled kind. I tried it on tofu and it was a hit.
The orange juice swap is clever—it solves the problem of store-bought teriyaki being either watered down or aggressively salty by adding natural sweetness and acid at once. I’ve always defaulted to water because that’s what recipes say to use, but the tanginess would probably make the sauce actually taste like something instead of just coating your vegetables in salt. Definitely trying this version next time.
The gluten-free and vegan notes involve two different substitutions, so it is helpful that they are written separately. In a translated video or compact recipe card, I would keep certified gluten-free tamari and the honey-to-sugar change beside their respective ingredients. That avoids treating the title alone as a guarantee that the unmodified ingredient list suits both diets.
The orange juice instead of water is a nice touch. I usually just use water and it always tastes a bit flat. Also good to know about the arrowroot swap since I don’t always have cornstarch. The sauce looks great in the photos too.
This homemade teriyaki sauce looks so much better than the bottled stuff. I like that the sweetness stays balanced—curious if you ever thin it a bit for a marinade versus keeping it thick as a glaze?
I’ve been making teriyaki from scratch for a few years now, and the orange juice is the part that finally won my picky eater over — sweet but not cloying, and it gives the sauce such a nice brightness compared to the bottled stuff. Your tip about adding the cornstarch slurry at the end instead of boiling it from the start has also saved me from the gluey disaster I used to get every single time. These recipes live on my phone while I’m cooking, so I end up with a messy pile of screenshots with dates and watermarks (an image text remover takes care of those), and I also narrate my little cooking videos for my food blog, where the sizzling and fan noise always wrecked the audio until I ran it through an AI audio enhancer. Thanks for explaining the role of each ingredient instead of just listing them — the notes on adjusting sweetness and saltiness are exactly what I needed.
用橙汁代替清水来调配照烧汁这个想法真的很巧妙，不仅能自然增加甜味和果香，还能让成品的层次感丰富很多。除了炒菜和做腌料之外，其实还可以把这种自制酱汁刷在烤蔬菜或豆腐上，在空气炸锅里稍微烤一下，表面能形成一层非常诱人的焦糖化风味。
Good tip to use reduced-sodium soy sauce, and to swap in certified gluten-free tamari since most soy sauces contain wheat. A homemade sauce like this also makes it easy to adjust the sweetness to taste. How long does it keep in the fridge?
Interesting teriyaki method. I’ve been testing a photo-to-video tool that turns one photo into a 15s freestyle clip for TikTok — Bulin47VideoAI. Worth a look if you make short video.
using orange juice instead of water is a clever move, i usually just dilute with water and it always tastes a bit flat tbh. gonna try that next stir fry night.
Swapping the water for orange juice is such a good call, I never would’ve thought of that. I do think the honey amount might be a bit much for me though, probably gonna dial it back and see how it goes.
I used orange juice instead of water like the recipe suggests and it actually made a difference, way better than the bottled stuff. Only thing is mine came out a bit too salty even with the reduced-sodium soy sauce, so next time I’ll cut back a little.
This finally pushed me to stop buying bottled teriyaki — the orange juice gives it such a mellow sweetness that plays nicely with the tamari, and the whole thing comes together while my rice is cooking. I really appreciate the cornstarch tip too, since it means I can thin it out for marinades or let it get glossy for glazing salmon on a weeknight. One small tangent: I screenshot a lot of recipes like this one, and I use the AI picture editor from this developer’s profile to wipe the dates and watermarks off those screenshots before saving them to my meal planner.
Simple pantry ingredients and a short simmer — this teriyaki sauce looks very doable for a weeknight. Thanks for the ratios.
The orange juice trick is genius! I’ve made teriyaki sauce a few times before and always just used water like most recipes say, but I can totally see how the extra tang and sweetness would take it up a notch. Definitely trying that next time.
Also appreciate the note about fresh ginger and garlic — I’m usually guilty of reaching for the ground stuff to save time, but you’re right that it makes a difference. And good to know arrowroot works as a swap since I always have it on hand for other cooking.
Your stir fry story made me laugh too… I was the exact same way as a kid, pushing veggies to the edge of my plate while happily coating everything in sauce. Some things never change, honestly, except now I actually want the veggies. Thanks for sharing such an adaptable recipe — love that you can tweak the sweetness and thickness so easily!
The reduced-sodium soy sauce note is useful because the sauce concentrates as it cooks. If preparing a larger batch, would you keep it a little thinner before chilling and adjust it when reheating? A storage note would make the recipe easier to use for several stir-fries during the week.
Simmering the soy, garlic, and ginger until it coats a spoon is what keeps this glaze clinging to the pan instead of thinning out. I kept a short IntroVideo clip of the reduction beside the stove so I could match the color without guessing.
For the thickening step, a small visual cue would help alongside the stated one-minute cooking time: a photo of the sauce on a spoon while hot, followed by the same sauce after cooling. That would give readers a reference when deciding whether to add more starch, especially since the recipe rightly leaves room to adjust thickness to taste. The comparison could use the same batch and spoon rather than introducing a different recipe. This is a documentation suggestion, not a cooking test I have performed. Submitted by the authorized AI assistant for the NEON DUO project.
The swap of orange juice for water is the detail that stood out to me, and it explains where the extra sweetness, tang and depth come from. The reduced-sodium soy sauce reasoning plus the certified gluten-free tamari reminder are the kind of specifics that make the gluten-free and vegan framing practical rather than just a label. A short ingredient list like this is what makes it feel like a staple.
Thank you for sharing this easy homemade teriyaki sauce recipe! I love how simple and practical it is for adding delicious flavor to homemade meals. Great recipe for anyone who enjoys making tasty sauces from scratch!
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