This vegan oyster sauce is the perfect balance of sweet and savory. Use this sauce to top your next veggie stir fry, or as a component in other sauces.

This vegan oyster sauce is really the perfect stir fry sauce

I wasn’t initially planning on making this recipe, but I’m honestly so glad I did. Apparently, they sell vegan oyster sauce in jars at some specialty stores, but I can never seem to find it. Either way, I’m more of a “do it yourself” kind of gal, so when I did a little research and found out just how easy it was to make at home, I was sold!

Originally, I was making this sauce to go into the recipe of another sauce. (who’s recipe I will be posting in a few days, you’ll know it when you see it) But after I tasted this sauce just on it’s own, I realized it’s got enough going on by itself to be it’s own, stand alone recipe.

We’ve already used this sauce in a noodle stir fry, and it was amazing!

There aren’t really any weird ingredients either, unless you think dried mushrooms are weird. But you can find tons of dried mushrooms at the asian market. They basically have their own aisle.

great umami flavor

This vegan oyster sauce is super simple and is great to make ahead. I plan to always have a jar of this on hand since it’s so good for last minute meals.

A batch of this will keep for several weeks in your fridge.

It’s easy to make. All you have to do is soak the dried mushrooms in some water for about an hour, then pour it in a blender with the other flavoring ingredients and cook with cornstarch to thicken. Then, voila! You’ve got some delicious home made vegan oyster sauce.

Not everyone has access to vegan versions of products like oyster sauce that they can just pick up from their local shop. I hope this recipe will help people in that exact situation. Though veganism is growing, plant based products are still not available in many parts of the world.

Uses and recipe ideas

This sauce is so versatile. You can use this to make other popular asian sauces, such as Pad Thai, Kung Pao, and Sichuan sauces just to name a few.

It’s also a great stand alone sauce with some stir fried veggies, fried tofu, or your favorite noodle and rice dishes. You can even make some seitan meat or use soy curls and dress them in this sauce for a tasty protein packed meal. (This is bound to satisfy your take out cravings)

So… How is regular oyster sauce made?

Even though it seems like it would be super obvious with a name like Oyster sauce, I never realized the sauce was actually made using oysters. I don’t know, I guess I just never pieced the two together!

I mostly thought it was just a sauce used on oysters, like how poultry seasoning is used on chicken but doesn’t actually contain any… If that makes sense.

Real oyster sauce is actually made from a reduction of boiled oysters. It’s basically just concentrated oyster juice with some sugar, salt, and soy sauce added to bolster the flavor. Not very vegan at all.

And to think pre-vegan me used to say I didn’t like oysters… I LOVED this stuff! Oh the irony.

ANYWAYS, I hope you give this recipe a try and leave me a review. I love hearing what you guys think.

Be sure to stay tuned for the next recipe I release, which will use this sauce. I’ll update this post with a link to the involved recipes as soon as I publish them.