The Japanese Sauce You Should Add To Canned Chicken Noodle Soup For Umami-Rich Flavors

Japanese condiments are nothing short of legendary. From savory, crunchy furikake to sweet and creamy Kewpie mayo, there's a delicious option suited to every taste. In our humble opinion, one of the nation's most criminally underrated condiments is mentsuyu, an intense, subtly sweet soy sauce-based sauce. Its ingredients are packed with umami, and its natural depth of flavor makes it a logical pairing to upgrade any can of chicken noodle soup.

We wouldn't be shocked if you haven't heard of mentsuyu before. It's a fairly niche ingredient outside of Japan, and its name translates to "noodle sauce," which isn't exactly an everyday staple in mainstream Western cooking. In Japan, though, mentsuyu (also known as tsuyu) is a pantry essential. Made from a simmered base of soy sauce paired with mirin, cooking sake, sugar, and dashi, it most commonly doubles as both a cold dipping sauce and a hot broth base for soba and udon noodles, so it's not far-fetched that it would also be a perfect match for chicken noodle soup.

When adding mentsuyu to your soup, you've got two options to pick from: straight and concentrated. Straight-type can be used right out of the bottle and delivers a milder, less salty flavor. Concentrated-type, on the other hand, needs to be diluted with hot water before use, since its flavor packs a far more intense punch. However, if you want to build your own custom seasoning, concentrated-type, diluted with other condiments, is an excellent way to truly personalize your meal. There's just one thing to watch out for: Chicken noodle soup already sits on the savory end of the spectrum, so just one or two tablespoons of mentsuyu is all you need.

If you're planning on adding mentsuyu to your chicken noodle soup, there are a few easy ways to kick it up a notch. For starters, we'd recommend using condensed soup, which has had most of its moisture removed, so it's essentially just a thick, gloopy paste. Doesn't sound too appetizing on its own, but that's exactly what opens the door for mentsuyu. The standard ratio for canned condensed soup is one can of water (or milk, for a creamier result) per can of soup, but swap that water for a mentsuyu-and-water mixture instead, and you've got an instant flavor upgrade. Instead of just being mixed in at the end, the mentsuyu has time to get comfortable with the ingredients. We suggest starting small and building on the flavor depending on your personal preferences.

Mentsuyu might feel more at home in your soup if you pair it with other Japanese staples. Look, Japanese soy sauce (shoyu) is amazing, but even the biggest salt aficionados probably won't be able to enjoy that level of sodium. Instead, stick to mentsuyu's own flavor philosophy: soy sauce, but sweet. Mirin, a sweet rice wine, is the obvious candidate here, mellowing out the saltiness for a more balanced dish. If you don't have a bottle handy, do what some Japanese ramen shops do and add a dash of sugar instead, which works even better when mixed with white vinegar. Sweet corn also works, and nobody's ever complained about the pairing of corn and chicken soup. Finally, for good measure, it's never a bad idea to finish things off with nitamago, an iconic Asian marinated egg with a soft, jammy yolk.