Is Soy Sauce Vegan?
I was just reading a recipe in an online cooking magazine and it says to use vegan soy sauce. The recipe I am talking about is the one that says to cook vegetables with some tofu. Does the soy sauce have eggs or anything else in it that would make it not vegan?
Comments
Yes, and no.
There’s been a long-standing debate among vegans as to whether or not soy sauce is vegan because the fermentation process of traditional soy sauces often involves fish parts.
In answer to this question, there are two different types of soy sauces depending on which country you’re from – Japanese style and Chinese style.
Traditionally, Japanese-style soy sauce doesn’t have any fish in it while Chinese soy sauce does have some fish in it due to the way they make it.
There are other ingredients in soy sauce that may not be vegan, but the primary ingredient, soybeans themselves, are vegan.
There’s also added salt which is vegan-friendly. If you’re not super strict about what else might be in your food because of allergies or other reasons then I don’t see why it would matter though because salt is “fine enough” for most people to tolerate it alongside their seasoning even if they really want to avoid animal products.
The answer to this question completely depends on the type of soy sauce.
Casual Soy Sauce is made by fermenting either boiled soybeans or other legumes, salt, sodium benzoate which helps to retain the color and flavor during cooking, lactic acid then refined with water for the third time.
Quieter Soy Sauce contains wheat.
Gourmet Soy Sauce’s ingredients may vary depending on what region it comes from but typically contains fish products like mentaiko (marinated pollock) found in hanshoyu.
Vegan Soy sauces cannot contain any animal product whatsoever unless specified as vegetarian so please be sure to read labels carefully!
Soy Sauce is vegan because it is just soybeans, water and salt. It does not contain any animal products or animal byproducts.
Nope, Soy Sauce is a fermented product that contains Fish and Wheat. As such, Soy Sauce is not vegan-friendly.
However, there are dozens of Vegan Sauces made with either vegetables or fruit as the main ingredients – but you’ll have to trial them out to see if they suit your taste! 🙂