What Is Ponzu Sauce?
Ponzu sauce is a Japanese seasoning made from citrus juice and vinegar. Generally, soy sauce is also added to that, and used as a dipping sauce for hot pot dish, sashimi, and various other dishes.
Please check this page for details of Ponzu Sauce.
What Is Ponzu Sauce and How Is It Used?
Please check this page for details of How To Use Ponzu Sauce.
The 10 Best Ways to Use Ponzu Sauce
Different Types of Ponzu Sauce
In fact, there are so many types of ponzu sauce in Japan.
I would like to introduce the 6 different types of ponzu sauce here!
1. Ponzu Sauce
This is the original ponzu sauce made from only citrus juice and brewed vinegar. Since it doesn’t contain soy sauce, the color is light yellowish.
It has a mild vinegar flavor and refreshing citrus scent.
This sauce matches perfectly with hot pot dish, boiled tofu, and deep-fried dish.
If you would like the soy sauce flavor too, it should be great to add a little soy sauce before eating.
2. Ponzu Soy Sauce
Speaking of ponzu, I guess most Japanese people imagine this ponzu soy sauce.
It’s made from soy sauce, citrus juice, and vinegar. In addition to that, it also contains sugar, salt, and other seasoning to create nicely balanced flavor.
It goes so well with any type of dishes, for example, yakiniku (grilled meat), grilled fish, sashimi, gyoza, etc.
It’s an all-purpose refreshing sauce that you can both put on or dip in any type of dish.
3. Yuzu Ponzu Sauce
The basic material for this is (2) ponzu soy sauce. Yuzu juice is added abundantly to it.
What Is Yuzu and How Is It Used?
The flavor of yuzu is such a wonderful scent that is different from other citrus fruits such as lemons and oranges. You must love the scent, so please try to buy yuzu ponzu once when you have a chance.
The raw materials for yuzu ponzu differ depending on the manufacturers, and some of them are containing bonito soup stock or kombu soup stock, or even both.
Ponzu soy sauce with the strong yuzu flavor goes super well as a dipping sauce for hot pot such as shabu-shabu.
4. Kombu Ponzu Sauce
This is made from soy sauce, citrus juice, and kombu dashi (soup stock). In fact, some of them are containing bonito dashi too.
The basic taste of it is refreshing and simple taste. But, at the same time, it has complex umami taste comes from kombu dashi.
As with other types of ponzu sauce, it would be great to put this kombu ponzu on grilled fish, salad, tofu etc. You can even use this for stir-frying dishes.
Due to the kombu dashi, this ponzu sauce has milder sourness than the ordinary ponzu sauce. So, it seems to be good for people who are not good at sourness.
What Is Kombu and How Is It Used?
5. Raw Ponzu Sauce
Here, “raw” means “freshly pressed”.
Although the raw materials and the manufacturing method differ depending on the manufacturers, they are making various efforts to make ponzu with fresher ingredients.
For instance, some of them use freshly squeezed citrus juice frozen within 4 hours of squeezing. Furthermore, they combine the juice with freshly squeezed soy sauce.
In most cases, it seems that they can realize really fresh taste unique to raw by finishing without heating.
6. Sesame Ponzu Sauce
The basic material for this is usually ponzu soy sauce or yuzu ponzu sauce. Most importantly, sesame paste and grind sesame are added to that.
Certainly, the depth and richness of roasted sesame is added and it is seriously delicious.
Generally speaking, soy sauce, miso paste, and vinegar are used for the typical sesame sauce. However, this sesame ponzu sauce is totally different from the one.
The refreshing citrus flavor matches extremely well with the sesame paste.
The typical sesame sauce often used in the dipping sauce for shabu-shabu. Moreover, sesame ponzu sauce can be great substitute for it. It makes the dish even more delicious.
Ponzu Sauce Recipes
4 Ways To Enjoy Ponzu Sauce Recipes
Conclusion
As I mentioned above, the excellent Japanese seasoning “ponzu sauce” is usually made from soy sauce and citrus juice. The refreshing flavor of the sauce amazingly upgrade your meal indeed.
Besides the 6 different types of ponzu sauce, there are actually many other types. For example, there are ponzu sauce with abundant mandarin orange flavor, ponzu sauce with abundant lemon flavor, etc.
Please try to find your favorite ponzu sauce at stores near you after checking the taste of several types of them!
