Tonkatsu Sauce (Japanese-Style Barbecue Sauce) Recipe

By
Joshua Bousel
a photo of Joshua Bousel, a Contributing Writer at Serious Eats
Joshua Bousel
Joshua Bousel is a Serious Eats old-timer, having started sharing his passion for grilling and barbecue recipes on the site back in 2008. He continues to develop grilling and barbecue recipes on his own site, The Meatwave, out of his home base of Durham, North Carolina.
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Updated May. 13, 2020
A small white square dish of tonkatsu sauce next to a fried cutlet.

Serious Eats / Joshua Bousel

A few weeks ago I picked up some pork katsu for lunch, only to return to the office and find a vacant space where the that thick sweet and salty tonkatsu sauce should have been. As I tried to down the rather dry and flavorless katsu, I was forced to dig deep into the bowels of my desk to find what must have been a two-year old McDonalds ketchup packet—to inject some sort of sauciness into my fried pork. It was at this point that I vowed never go without my tonkatsu sauce ever again and decided to learn how to make it.

For what tastes like a rather complex sauce, it's very simple to put together. Although eaten alongside Japanese breaded and fried cutlets, the origins are actually British, with tonkatsu sauce being a sweeter and thicker variation of Worcestershire.

A quick mix of ketchup and Worcestershire gets you most of the way there. I added some soy sauce for extra salt, sugar and mirin for more sweetness, and mustard and garlic powder to add complexity. The end result was the exact sauce I was missing that sad day I was forced into using an inferior product to go with my crispy golden katsu.

Recipe Facts

3.3

(8)

Prep: 5 mins
Active: 5 mins
Total: 5 mins
Serves: 4 servings
Makes: 1/2 cup

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Ingredients

  • 1/3 cup ketchup

  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce

  • 1 tablespoon mirin

  • 1 tablespoon sugar

  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions

  1. In a small bowl, stir together ketchup, Worcestershire, soy sauce, mirin, sugar, mustard, and garlic powder. Use immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a month.

    Whisk in a small bowl of richly-flavored tonkatsu sauce

    Serious Eats / Joshua Bousel
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
51 Calories
0g Fat
12g Carbs
1g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories 51
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 0g 0%
Saturated Fat 0g 0%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 516mg 22%
Total Carbohydrate 12g 4%
Dietary Fiber 0g 1%
Total Sugars 10g
Protein 1g
Vitamin C 2mg 10%
Calcium 15mg 1%
Iron 1mg 3%
Potassium 146mg 3%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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