Homemade Teriyaki Sauce with Honey

Here's a homemade sauce that's so good that you'll never buy it again. It's so easy to make!

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Jump to:

• 🗝️ Key takeaways
• ❤️ Why you'll love it
• 🧾 Ingredients
• 📖 Variations
• 🔪 Instructions
• 🥫 How to store homemade teriyaki sauce
• 💭 Things to know
• 👩‍🍳 FAQs
• 📚 Related recipes
• 🍽️ Serve with...
• How to use honey teriyaki sauce
• 🥄 Restless Chipotle recommends
• 📞 The last word
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

🗝️ Key takeaways

• Homemade honey teriyaki sauce is easy to make with simple ingredients you've probably already got on hand.
• This is delicious with any recipe that calls for teriyaki sauce. See the How to use teriyaki sauce for ideas.
• Making your own pantry staples is easy, inexpensive, and totally takes your recipes to a new level of yum.

❤️ Why you'll love it

• Homemade teriyaki sauce easy to make with simple ingredients you've probably already got on hand.
• It tastes way better than the commercial kind.
• You'll never worry about having to run to the store mid-recipe again.

This sauce is an important ingredient in so many delicious dishes! It's a delicious marinade for meat or poultry (think teriyaki chicken), excellent as a stir-fry sauce, and a delicious dipping sauce for potstickers!

Let me warn you, though. Once you try this homemade teriyaki sauce recipe you'll never go back to the store-bought kind.

It's the perfect combination of savory-salty-sweet flavor!

🧾 Ingredients

📖 Variations

• Use pineapple juice or orange juice for part of the water to give it even more flavor.
• I like to use both brown sugar and honey to sweeten this easy sauce but you can use all brown sugar or all honey if you wish.
• Add some crushed red peppers for a little heat.
• For an extra thick teriyaki sauce add a bit more cornstarch.
• Sometimes I add just a teaspoon of sesame oil, or drizzle of smoked sesame oil or chile sesame oil for even more flavor.
• This versatile sauce is great with pork chops, too.

🔪 Instructions

1. Add the soy sauce, 1 cup of water, brown sugar, honey, ginger, garlic, and onion to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 - 3 minutes.
2. Dissolve cornstarch in a small bowl with ¼ cup cold water, whisking to make a cornstarch slurry.
3. Stir it into the simmering soy sauce mixture.
4. Cook until thickened. Let come to room temperature and pour into a storage container and refrigerate.

🥫 How to store homemade teriyaki sauce

Put in an airtight container (a pint-sized glass Mason jar works great). Store up to a week in the refrigerator.

I wouldn't suggest freezing it because it has a tendency to get watery and separate because of the cornstarch.

💭 Things to know

Expert Tip: Don't let it boil or overheat it. Simmer for about 2 -3 minutes. If you cook too long the mixture will break and get very thin and watery again.

• If you need a gluten-free option be sure to look for a gluten-free soy sauce like Kikkoman Tamari.
• If you'd like a sweeter sauce you can add a bit more sugar or honey. Vary the amount of honey to your own tastes.
• White sugar gives the homemade sauce a bit more of a delicate flavor than brown sugar.
• I prefer ground ginger to fresh ginger. If you want to use fresh you'll need about a teaspoon and a half of freshly grated ginger.
• You can substitute about ½ teaspoon of garlic powder for the fresh garlic.
• Adjust the saltiness to your own tastes by using low-sodium soy sauce to lower it or regular soy sauce for a saltier teriyaki sauce.
• Marinate chicken in your homemade teriyaki sauce and then grill the chicken. Brush on a little more teriyaki during grilling to create a shiny glaze.

👩‍🍳 FAQs

📚 Related recipes

You can make all kinds of pantry basics right at home! They save time and money plus they are usually much more flavorful!

This Red Robin Copycat Campfire Sauce is another homemade condiment to add to your recipe file! It's so good with french fries or burgers.

🍽️ Serve with...

Brush this simple honey teriyaki sauce on burgers, roasts, or chicken. It's also good on grilled pineapple!

I use this in my favorite slow cooker pineapple teriyaki chicken recipe.

How to use honey teriyaki sauce

You can use this honey teriyaki sauce the same way you would a purchased sauce. If you are going to use it as a marinade leave the cornstarch out.

• Brush on salmon or other fish while grilling
• It's a delicious sauce for noodle bowls
• Or rice bowls
• Brush it on vegetables while roasting or grilling
• Add a little to ground beef when making burgers or meatloaf
• Use it as a dipping sauce for dumplings'
• Brush it on kabobs as they're grilling
• As a glaze for meatballs
• Brushed on ribs
• Use in stir fry
• Brush on chicken while grilling

🥄 Restless Chipotle recommends

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• soy sauce
• brown sugar
• honey
• ginger
• onion
• garlic
• cornstarch
• saucepan
• whisk

📞 The last word

I learned my lesson during Covid 2020.

I, like Scarlett O'Hara, raised a tired fist to the sky and exclaimed, "I'll never be without bread, sauce of any kind, or toilet paper again!"

Now, I haven't yet learned to make toilet paper but as far as homemade versions of the commercial products I buy?

Y'all, it's not that deep.

This homemade teriyaki sauce is absolutely delicious in any recipe that you'd use the commercial kind in. It's also one of the easiest homemade sauces to make!

You'll just need a few pantry staples.

It's less expensive, has more flavor, and if you go to the grocery stores and the teriyaki shelves are bare?

You'll smile to yourself and head home, confident in your abilities to recreate an even better version.

Add this simple sauce to any recipe that calls for teriyaki sauce. You'll love it!

If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need.

If you love this recipe please give it 5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📖 Recipe

First published August 24, 2021. Last updated August 25, 2023 for editorial corrections and more information.