Oyster Sauce
This weeks question comes from Creina, “What does oyster sauce taste like? Does it have a fishy taste? If so, what is a substitute for it in recipes (stir-fry, etc.) Thanks, Creina”
Oyster sauce is a thick, salty sauce used in Chinese food. It is made with dried oysters and so it does have a savoury fish flavour. There are vegetarian version of simulated oyster sauce available if fish is a problem. If only a small amount is called for, you can omit it or replace it with soy sauce or hoisin sauce. Hoisin is sweet and oyster sauce is not so it will change the flavour of the dish, but it has a similar texture.
Getting questions like this brings home how fortunate we foodies who live in Toronto are; almost every ingredient imaginable is at our culinary disposal. We are very aware that not all of you are able to get exotic ingredients, and that many of you want to know how to use them if you can get them. In the test kitchen, we tread the very careful line of using accessible ingredients and using new foods that are in the market place that our readers want to know about. If you can’t find an ingredient, feel free to ask us for a substitute. Or, ask your grocer to stock it, they do listen to their customers and your wallet speaks volumes!
Disagree with my advice? Want to write in and try to stump me? Leave a comment and I’ll get back to you next Monday.
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Is Oyster Sauce the same as Fish Sauce, then? I’m confused!
No Butterlover, fish sauce is a fermented condiment made from fish not oysters. It’s thin like soy sauce and lighter in colour than soy sauce. It’s also quite stinky but it’s what gives Thai and Vietnamese food that very distinctive taste, your pad thai would not taste the same without it.
Hey, no way am I going to try to stump you, oh goddess of food. This topic reminded me of one of my burning Chinese food questions: what is the brown sauce that there is never enough of in my home-delivery cantonese chow mein? There is no competition for the stuff on top of the noodles, but my kids battle for the noodles and the brown sauce. Could this brown sauce just be plain oyster sauce? Could I boil a huge block of the right Chinese noodles, toss it in straight-from-the-bottle oyster sauce and save myself a lot of money? What do you think?
The brown sauce is probably a combination of things that may or may not include oyster sauce. I have however made a stir fry with staight up oyster sauce so you can give it a whirl, it might be a bit salty on just noodles. Give it a try and let me know if it was kid friendly!
What is the shelf life of Oyster Sauce?
I tried the straight up oyster sauce on rice noodles and my son loved it. Mind you he does eat the fire cracker beef from the recipe video here. But he had that with crab sushi and a vegetable stirfry and went crazy for it. (he’s ten by the way)