Homemade Okonomiyaki Sauce

Okonomiyaki sauce, essential for enjoying okonomiyaki, can be easily made at home even if you don't have any store-bought options on hand. Let's enjoy okonomiyaki with this rich, slightly sweet, and thick sauce.

Okonomiyaki Sauce is a specialized condiment used for okonomiyaki. It typically has low acidity and a rich, slightly sweet, thick consistency. These characteristics are influenced by the history of how okonomiyaki came to be in its current form.

Originally, okonomiyaki was a dish made by mixing wheat flour with water and then cooking it with toppings such as green onions and other ingredients, in a style known as Issen Yoshoku. While Worcestershire sauce was initially used with this dish, its thin consistency caused it to soak into the batter, and its strong acidity made it overpowering. As a result, there was a growing demand for a milder-flavored sauce that would complement the batter, and in response to this, a sauce with lower acidity, higher sugar content, and a thicker consistency was created.

Around the time issen yoshoku evolved into today's okonomiyaki, this sauce also came to be known as okonomiyaki sauce. In other words, okonomiyaki sauce is now defined as being sweeter, thicker, and less acidic compared to Worcestershire sauce.

Attempting to make this sauce from scratch, like the store-bought versions, can be quite challenging.

Okonomiyaki sauce is derived from Japanese Worcestershire sauce, which is made by combining various vegetables and fruits such as tomatoes, onions, carrots, celery, apples, prunes, and dates, along with a variety of spices. In other words, to make okonomiyaki sauce from scratch, you would need to start by gathering and simmering these ingredients. This requires a lot of effort.

Therefore, when making this sauce at home, it is recommended to use commercially available Japanese Worcestershire sauce as a base. Using this sauce allows you to skip the process of gathering and simmering vegetables, fruits, and spices, making it very easy to prepare.

Many Japanese sauces are based on Worcestershire sauce, so if you have Japanese Worcestershire sauce on hand, you can easily make not only okonomiyaki sauce but also yakisoba sauce, takoyaki sauce, tonkatsu sauce, and more at home.

You can make homemade okonomiyaki sauce with just three ingredients, as follows:

• Japanese Worcestershire sauce

This serves as the base for the sauce. Worcestershire sauce made in Japan is suitable for this sauce due to its lower acidity. Outside of Japan, Worcestershire sauce tends to be more acidic, so I recommend using Japanese brands like Kagome or Bulldog.

• Sugar

It adds sweetness to the sauce.

• Ketchup

It provides thickness and flavor. If the sauce doesn’t seem thick enough with just ketchup, feel free to add a bit of starch dissolved in water to adjust the consistency.

Simply mixing these ingredients may result in a slightly acidic taste. Therefore, heating the mixture to reduce its acidity will help perfect your homemade okonomiyaki sauce.

Ingredients

---

---

Instructions

🕒 Total: 2 mins mins

Step 1
In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients (Japanese Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and sugar). Loosely cover the bowl with plastic wrap and microwave it on medium power (500W) for 30 seconds.

---

To store

You can keep it in an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator for up to a month.