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Made from fermented soybeans, soy sauce plays an important role in adding flavour, umami, aroma and colour to our dishes. I know most people other than the Chinese find it confusing to have light and dark soy sauce. For me, growing up I just know that light soy sauce is for the flavour and the dark one is to add colour. So, for marinating and seasoning we use light soy sauce; dark soy sauce really is just to add at the final step to give the dish a deep dark brown colour.  

What’s the difference between light soy sauce and dark soy sauce?

Light soy sauce is, as its name suggests, lighter in colour and has a thinner consistency than dark soy sauce. Dark soy sauce, on the other hand, is darker and has a thicker consistency as a result of the longer fermentation process. To enhance the colour of dishes, you want to use dark soy sauce.

Light soy sauce adds almost no colour to a dish and is more suitable for cold dishes or stir-fries with a lighter taste. This aubergine noodle bowl is made with light soy sauce only.

For heavy-flavoured dishes, such as braised meats and stews, we generally use light soy sauce for the umami flavour, adding dark soy sauce as well for the colour. 

Look at the colour of these mouth-watering dishes, all made with dark soy sauce.

But to be honest, I find that most British supermarket dark soy sauces lack the richness and colour they are supposed to have, making it even harder to tell what’s the difference between that and the light version. I tried a few different ones and they added not much more colour than the light soy sauce. My go-to dark soy sauce is Hong Kong brand Lee Kum Kee. Add it to any dish, it’ll instantly add a deep, rich, dark brown colour to it. It’s quite easy to find in the shops, even my local big Tesco sells it. You can also find them on Amazon.

You can get a brilliant stir fry cooking set on Amazon, which comes with both of these sou sauces and an oyster sauce which is another key ingredients in a lot of Chinese dishes.

Hope this helps reduce your confusion at the shop next time!

Janice xx

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