How to Make Tempura Sauce

Prepare a flavorful sauce for dipping tempura.

Tempura is food coated in light batter and then deep fried Japanese style. Seafood and root vegetables are popular for tempura dishes. A tempura dish is not complete with a pairing dipping sauce. Traditionally, the taste of the tempura sauce differs by season -- heavy in the summer, and light in the winter-- and depends on the type of tempura being served. Prepared tempura sauce is readily available at the supermarket, usually bottled in glass or plastic container. The dipping sauce comes in many flavors. You can make your own tempura sauce -- for fun or experience -- or to adjust the seasonings according to the tempura you are serving.

Things You'll Need

• 1 cup light or low sodium vegetable broth
• 1/3 cup mirin (preferred), or sweet sherry, or honey, or sake (for a stronger flavor)
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 1-inch piece of horseradish
• Grated ginger to taste
• Lemon juice to taste, optional
• 1/2 tsp. MSG, optional

Instructions

1. Blend soy sauce, mirin (or sweet sherry/sake/honey), vegetable broth and MSG in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and then remove from heat.

2. Grate the horseradish. Spoon equal amounts of tempura sauce into individual serving bowls or saucers with some of the horseradish for each.

3. Serve the tempura sauce with tempura seafood and tempura vegetables. Add lemon juice to suit individual taste.

Tips & Warnings

• Mirin is a form of Japanese rice wine, more sugary, sweeter than sake with less alcohol content (14 percent maximum), comparing to sake (20 percent maximum). Mirin can also have no alcohol. Mirin can be found where sake is sold.

References

• "Tempura sauce"
• "Tempura dipping sauce"