Soy Sauce Substitutes for Fried Rice, Stir-Fries, and Marinades
You reached for the bottle and it is empty. Or the bottle is there, but someone at the table cannot have wheat, or cannot have soy, or is watching salt.
The short answer: the best soy sauce substitute depends on what you need it to do. For general cooking, tamari is the closest swap. For a gluten-free kitchen, use a soy sauce that carries a gluten-free claim. For a soy-free kitchen, coconut aminos or mushroom broth gets you most of the way. For lower sodium, the answer is less sauce plus more acid and aroma, not a different bottle.
“Best” is the wrong question on its own, though. Soy sauce does three jobs at once — it salts, it adds savory depth, and it adds color. Most substitutes do one or two of those well and fail at the third. That is why a swap that works in a marinade can ruin a stir-fry.
Here is how to pick, by reason first and by dish second.
Start with your reason, not the ingredient
Four different problems get filed under “I need a soy sauce substitute,” and they have different answers.
You just ran out. Use tamari, coconut aminos, fish sauce, or oyster sauce — whatever is in the cupboard. See the table below.
You are cooking gluten-free. You need a soy sauce that is labelled gluten-free. Tamari is often wheat-free, but “often” is not a guarantee.
You are cooking soy-free. Every soy sauce is out, including gluten-free ones. Coconut aminos, mushroom broth, and salt-plus-acid are your tools.
You want less sodium. A different bottle rarely solves this. Less sauce, more acid, more aroma, and a salt you control solves it.
Soy sauce substitute comparison
Read the two diet columns separately. Gluten and soy are not the same problem, and a product can be free of one while being full of the other.
| Substitute | Closest to soy sauce when… | Best for | Gluten | Soy | Salt vs soy sauce | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tamari | you want the same savory backbone | stir-fries, marinades, dipping | Often, but only if labelled | Contains soy | Similar | Thicker and slightly less sharp; some brands add wheat |
| Gluten-free soy sauce | you want soy sauce, just without wheat | everything soy sauce does | Free (if labelled GF) | Contains soy | Similar | Still not safe for a soy allergy |
| Coconut aminos | you want soy-free and gluten-free in one bottle | glazes, light stir-fries, dipping | Free | Free | Much lower | Sweeter; needs added salt; flavor is not soy |
| Liquid aminos | you want more savoriness, not less | marinades, braises | Usually free | Contains soy | Similar to higher | Stronger than expected |
| Fish sauce | you want pure savory depth | marinades, Thai-style stir-fries | Usually free | Free | Much higher | Fish allergen; strong smell before cooking |
| Oyster sauce | you want body and a little sweetness | stir-fries, noodles, glazes | Often contains wheat — check | Often contains soy — check | Similar | Shellfish allergen; thicker, so it scorches |
| Hoisin sauce | you want sweetness and stickiness | glazes, dipping | Usually contains wheat | Usually contains soy | Lower | Very sweet; not a 1:1 swap |
| Miso paste + water | you want fermented depth in a liquid | soups, marinades, dressings | Depends on the grain — check | Contains soy | Higher per teaspoon | Lumpy unless whisked; often has barley or rice |
| Worcestershire sauce | you want tang and complexity | marinades, braises | Often contains barley malt — check | Free | Lower | Contains anchovy (fish); too acidic for delicate dishes |
| Dried mushroom soaking liquid | you want savory depth with no allergens | fried rice, stir-fries, broths | Free | Free | Almost none | Adds no salt — salt separately |
| Salt + acid | you only needed the salt | fried rice, quick vegetables | Free | Free | Controlled by you | No color, no savoriness |
The part nobody explains: soy sauce is mostly doing salt
This is why so many substitutions disappoint.
If you swap soy sauce for something much lower in sodium — coconut aminos, mushroom liquid, a reduced-sodium product — and you use the same spoonful, the dish tastes flat. Not because the substitute is bad, but because you removed the salt and nothing replaced it.
You can solve this with the label you already have.
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- Find sodium per serving on your soy sauce.
- Find sodium per serving on the substitute.
- Divide the first by the second. That is roughly how many servings of the substitute you need to match the salt.
- Add that amount, then top up with water or stock if the flavor becomes too strong.
As an illustration — round numbers, not a specific product — if your soy sauce carries 900 mg sodium per tablespoon and your substitute carries 300 mg, you need about three tablespoons of the substitute to match one tablespoon of soy sauce. That is usually too much liquid and too much of the substitute’s own flavor, so the practical move is two tablespoons plus a pinch of salt.
That trade-off — salt versus liquid versus flavor — is the real decision. Not “which bottle is closest.”
Fried rice: salt and a little color, fast
Fried rice is cooked at high heat and finished in under a minute. Whatever you add has to dissolve quickly and must not carry much sugar.
Good swaps: gluten-free soy sauce, tamari, coconut aminos plus a pinch of salt, mushroom soaking liquid plus salt.
Poor swaps: hoisin, teriyaki, or a lot of oyster sauce. All three carry sugar, and sugar goes from glaze to burnt in seconds in a hot wok. Burnt sugar tastes bitter, not caramelized.
Two practical notes:
- Add it at the edge of the pan, not the center. Pour around the rim so it hits hot metal and flashes off, instead of pooling on the rice and steaming it.
- Salt last. With a lower-sodium substitute, taste the rice before the final toss and add salt directly. It is far easier to add salt than to remove it.
For the egg side of the same pan, see our soy sauce eggs.
Stir-fry: the sauce meets the aromatics, so sweetness matters
In a stir-fry the sauce usually hits garlic and ginger in hot oil. That is a different environment from fried rice: more fat, more time on heat, often a thickening step at the end.
Good swaps: tamari, gluten-free soy sauce, fish sauce (use less), oyster sauce if gluten and shellfish are not a concern.
Watch the sugar. Coconut aminos, hoisin, and teriyaki will caramelize early and start to catch. Add them later in the cook, after the vegetables have released their water.
Watch the thickness. Oyster sauce and hoisin coat the wok and burn before they coat the food. Thin them with a spoon of water or stock first.
For where the sauce sits in the sequence, see the beef and broccoli stir-fry.
Marinades: this is where substitutions fail hardest
A marinade is not a sauce. It is a salt solution with flavor in it, and its main job is to get salt into the meat.
Soy sauce does this well because it is very salty and mostly water, so it carries salt inward while adding savory notes and helping the surface brown.
If you swap it for something low in sodium, the outside tastes seasoned and the inside tastes like nothing. That is the classic failure, and marinating longer does not fix it.
What to do instead:
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- Match the salt first. Use the label math above, or add salt directly. The marinade should taste distinctly salty before the meat goes in.
- Keep it liquid. If your substitute is thick — hoisin, oyster sauce, miso — thin it with water, stock, or a little rice vinegar so it can sit against the surface.
- Add acid deliberately. Vinegar, citrus, or wine helps, but too much firms up the surface of the meat. A tablespoon or two per pound is usually enough.
- Do not add sugar early. Sugar in a marinade promotes burning on the grill. Glaze at the end instead.
Fish sauce is the strongest marinade substitute — salt and deep savoriness with no sugar — but start with about a third of the volume you would use for soy sauce and taste. That ratio is a starting point, not a rule.
For a full application, see the soy sauce chicken recipe.
Gluten-free is not the same as soy-free
This is the most consequential confusion in the whole topic, so it gets its own section.
Gluten-free means the product does not contain wheat, barley, or rye gluten above the legal threshold. In the US, “gluten-free” is a voluntary claim a manufacturer may use if it meets FDA requirements, and any unavoidable gluten must be under 20 parts per million.
Soy-free means the product contains no soybean. Separate question, separate answer.
Almost every soy sauce on the shelf is made from soybeans. So:
-
- Gluten-free soy sauce — no wheat, still soy. Safe for celiac disease. Not safe for a soy allergy.
- Tamari — Japanese soy sauce, traditionally made with little or no wheat. Many brands are gluten-free, but some add wheat, so the claim on the label is what counts, not the word “tamari.”
- Coconut aminos — free of both, but a different ingredient with a sweeter, thinner flavor.
- Liquid aminos — usually gluten-free, always soy-based.
There is one more layer worth knowing. Soy sauce is a fermented food, and fermented and hydrolyzed foods are harder to test for gluten than flour-based foods. FDA issued a separate final rule in 2020 setting out how manufacturers of fermented and hydrolyzed foods must demonstrate compliance with a gluten-free claim. So a gluten-free claim on a soy sauce is a specific, regulated statement, not a marketing habit. Look for the words, not the cuisine.
For the full breakdown, see is soy sauce gluten-free.
If you are cooking around a soy allergy, none of our soy sauces are for you. Sauce Grandmaster Gluten-Free Light Soy Sauce is our gluten-free option — the label carries a gluten-free claim. It is still a soy sauce and still contains soy, so it is not a soy sauce substitute for a soy allergy. Soy is one of the nine major food allergens US law requires manufacturers to declare, and that label is there for a reason. Use the soy-free options in the table above.
What not to use
A few swaps circulate online and mostly do not work.
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- Teriyaki as a 1:1 swap. It is soy sauce plus sugar plus mirin. It burns in a hot pan and over-sweetens a marinade. Treat it as a glaze.
- Balsamic vinegar. Too acidic, too dark, wrong sweetness for savory Asian dishes.
- Hoisin as a straight replacement. It is mostly sugar by texture. Works as a glaze, fails as a seasoning.
- Bouillon cubes in water. Adds salt and some savoriness, but the stock flavor reads as wrong in fried rice.
A note on “homemade soy sauce”
People search for this, so plainly: you cannot make soy sauce at home in an evening. Real soy sauce is a months-long fermentation of soybeans and grain with koji mold. There is no shortcut.
What you can make is an emergency seasoning liquid that behaves like soy sauce in a pan: one part stock or water, a pinch of salt, a few drops of rice vinegar, and a little sugar or mushroom powder for depth. Whisk, taste, adjust salt last.
That is not soy sauce. It is a salty, savory liquid, and it will get you through dinner.
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What is the best substitute for soy sauce?
Tamari, for most cooking. Same fermented soybean base, similar salt, similar color. If you need gluten-free, use a soy sauce that carries a gluten-free label. If you need soy-free, use coconut aminos plus a pinch of salt.
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Can I use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce?
Yes, but expect a different dish. It is sweeter, thinner, and much lower in sodium. Start 1:1, then add salt to make up the difference. It browns less, so do not rely on it for color.
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Is tamari always gluten-free?
No. Many tamari products use little or no wheat, but some contain wheat. Only the gluten-free claim on the label is a reliable guide.
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What can I use if I am allergic to soy?
Coconut aminos, dried mushroom soaking liquid, salt plus acid, or a sauce that is both gluten-free and soy-free. Read every label — soy appears in many Asian-style sauces, including some oyster sauces and hoisin sauces.
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What can I use instead of soy sauce for fried rice?
Gluten-free soy sauce, tamari, coconut aminos with added salt, or mushroom liquid with salt. Avoid sweet sauces like hoisin or teriyaki — they burn at wok heat.
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How much fish sauce replaces soy sauce?
Start with about a third of the volume and taste. Fish sauce is saltier and more pungent, so it is much easier to add more than to take it back out.
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Can I just use salt instead of soy sauce?
For salt, yes. For flavor, no. Salt seasons but adds no savory depth or color. If you use only salt, add something fermented or savory to fill the gap.
The bottom line
There is no single best soy sauce substitute, because soy sauce does three jobs and no other bottle does all three equally well.
Pick by your constraint first — out of sauce, gluten-free, soy-free, or lower sodium. Then adjust for the dish: fast and salty for fried rice, careful with sugar for stir-fries, salt-first for marinades.
And taste as you go. A substitute is not a conversion. It is a decision you make three or four times while cooking.
Sources
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- USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service — Food Product Dating
- US Food and Drug Administration — Gluten-Free Labeling of Foods
- US Food and Drug Administration — Questions and Answers on the Gluten-Free Food Labeling Final Rule
- US Food and Drug Administration — Food Allergies
- US Food and Drug Administration — Sodium in Your Diet
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