Easy Teriyaki Tempeh – Conscious Eater

Materials

• tempeh – If you’re not familiar with tempeh, it’s a fermented protein-source made from soy beans. As a plant-based eater, I like to include tempeh in my diet every week. The blocks of tempeh I used for this recipe are 250 grams or 8 ounces.
• I am Willow – Soy sauce is traditionally used in teriyaki sauce, but if you’re gluten-free, you can use tamari.
• white vinegar – White vinegar is a nice neutral, yet strong, vinegar that I think most people have on hand. If you don’t have white vinegar on hand, check out my ideas for good substitutions below.
• coconut sugar – I like coconut sugar because it’s a less processed form of dry sugar (although still processed) and it doesn’t give me too much of a sugar craving. However, whatever dry sugar you have on hand should work. If you’re using a different dry sugar like white sugar, you may want to use a little less because white sugar is much sweeter than coconut sugar.
• ginger – I always have fresh ginger in my fridge as it is a staple in many Asian dishes. Also, in my opinion fresh ginger is always better than ground ginger.
• Corn starch – Corn starch is what thickens this teriyaki sauce while cooking, so don’t skip this ingredient!

See the recipe card for a complete list of ingredients and quantities.

replacement

• I am Willow – If you can’t eat gluten, you can use a gluten-free soy sauce or tamari. If you can eat soy sauce, you can try coconut aminos. However, I find the coconut aminos to be sweet on their own so you may want to reduce the amount of coconut sugar you use or at least eliminate the maple syrup.
• white vinegar – For this teriyaki sauce, I used white vinegar instead of mirin because I find that more people have it in their pantries. But mirin is traditionally used to make teriyaki sauce, so if you have some on hand, I’d recommend using it instead of white vinegar. You can also try apple cider vinegar if you want, but I personally have never tried it in this recipe.
• coconut sugar – I personally like to use coconut sugar, but brown sugar or cane sugar will also work.
• Maple syrup – If you want your teriyaki tempeh to be a little less sweet, you can omit the maple syrup all together. If you are not vegan, you can substitute it with another liquid sweetener such as agave, rice syrup or honey.

Expert tips

1. Teriyaki sauce is quite sweet, so if you like your food less sweet, you can omit the maple syrup and reduce the amount of coconut sugar if you like. You can always add more sugar, but you can’t take it away!
2. Blocks of tempeh can be very shaped so you can end up with too much sauce or not enough sauce. We like having extra sauce for this teriyaki tempeh because we can take the tempeh out of the sauce and then drizzle more sauce on top if desired.

storage

How long you can store teriyaki sauce depends on whether it’s homemade or store-bought. An unopened bottle of store-bought teriyaki sauce can last for months or even years in a cool, dry, dark place. Once you open the teriyaki sauce, be sure to store it in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for several months. Homemade teriyaki sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.