A slice of lamb that soaks up the sauce and lingers on the tongue a little while is pretty hard to beat. While it is super important to perfect your lamb recipes to a tee and find the perfect sides to accompany your lamb dish, a sauceless lamb dish is an unhappy one. Mongolian lamb especially is a testament to the power of good sauce. As a Chinese-Australian go-to takeaway dish, it is sometimes called “sizzling” Mongolian lamb, which is why the extra drip of sauce is the final touch that shouldn’t be skipped. While there are several saucy options, dark soy sauce is the one that invites a noticeable boost in depth and creates a flavor profile that makes seconds and thirds inevitable.
Mongolian lamb is a stir-fry dish, which means that the speedy preparation and assortment of chopped up veggies, marinades, and sauces play a big role in the overall taste profile. Typically, the ingredients included in Mongolian lamb sauce include dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, hoisin, chili, cornstarch or cornflour, Chinese five spice powder, sesame oil, water, and Chinese cooking wine (or Mirin for an alcohol-free alternative). The role of dark soy sauce in the sauce is to add strong aromatics and rich color. The main difference between light soy sauce and dark soy sauce is the intensity, since dark soy sauce has fermented for a longer period of time. Excluding the dark soy sauce means your sauce will lack that distinct soy taste. On top of this, a key ingredient in the lamb marinade is also dark soy sauce, so the additional inclusion in the lamb sauce builds on that flavor, creating an even deeper taste.
How to enjoy the perfect sauce for Mongolian lamb every time
Dark soy sauce is no stranger to a good marinade — especially a two-ingredient zesty one — and it makes its presence known when splashed into a stir-fry. In this case, you’re already armed with an equation that leads to a tasty Mongolian lamb dish. The particular glory of Mongolian lamb sauce is the balance of sweet, salty, spicy, and umami flavors. Every item plays its part well. Dark soy holds the sauce together with a robust and savory taste that can’t be compensated by the other ingredients. Light soy sauce alone is best for adding saltiness, which is why it is usually accompanied by dark soy sauce for a fuller flavor. Spoon dark soy sauce into the mix to ensure that the warmth and fermented umami notes add some needed complexity to this lamb dish.
Ground bean sauce is another addition that sometimes makes a feature in Mongolian lamb sauce. Since it is fermented yellow soybeans, it adds a noticeable touch of salty and umami flavors to the sauce which dark soy sauce complements well. Keep in mind that ground (or black) bean sauce contains soy sauce, so you won’t need to be so heavy handed with the dark soy in your sauce recipe. A ratio of 1-to-1 tablespoons of each will bring out the flavors. If you’re looking for an alternative to soy sauce to avoid gluten or high sodium, coco aminos (aka coconut aminos) would be a close alternative. Coco aminos are made from fermented coconut palm sap and similarly offer a rich umami taste with a hint of sweetness, as a gluten and soy-free alternative. To stick closer to the flavor profile of soy sauce, try out gluten-free soy sauce.
