Shoyuzuke or Soy Sauce Pickling is one of the easiest tsukemono (Japanese pickles) you can make at home! Pickle fresh seasonal vegetables and serve them as a palate cleanser in your Japanese meal.
Pickling may come across as a tedious undertaking for any beginners, but you’ll be surprised how easy it is once you give it a try. In the world of Japanese pickles, you can start out by experimenting with some of the simplest pickling methods like Shoyuzuke (醤油漬け).
Shoyuzuke refers to soy sauce (shoyu) pickling (zuke). It is a very basic form of Japanese pickles known collectively as tsukemono (漬物). If you’re interested in learning more about different types of tsukemono, read Tsukemono: A Guide to Japanese Pickles on my blog.
Tsukemono has several types based on the pickling agent:
- Shiozuke (塩漬け) – salt
- Suzuke (酢漬け) – vinegar
- Amazuzuke (甘酢漬け) – sugar and vinegar
- Misozuke (味噌漬け) – miso
- Shoyuzuke (醤油漬け) – soy sauce
- Kasuzuke (粕漬け) – sake kasu (lees)
- Shiokojizuke (塩麹) – rice koji/mold-cultured rice
- Nukazuke (糠漬け) – nuka (rice bran)
- Karashizuke (からし漬け) – Japanese hot mustard karashi
- Satozuke (砂糖漬け) – sugar
This is part of the Tsukemono series I’m covering, but today let’s talk about Shoyuzuke.
What’s Shoyuzuke?
Shoyuzuke (醤油漬け) is to pickle ingredients in soy sauce-base agent, or it also refers the soy sauce-pickled food. The common ingredients for shoyuzuke include:
- Japanese mustard spinach (Komatsuna 小松菜)
- Japanese turnip (Kabu カブ)
- Daikon (Japanese radish)
- Cucumber
- Eggplant
- Celery
- Cabbage
- Broccoli rabe
- Root vegetables like renkon (lotus root) and gobo (burdock root)
After pickling, the vegetables are eaten as they are (raw).
How to Pickle Vegetables in Soy Sauce
The pickling agent is very easy to make. All you need is to mix the following ingredients together. You can also include the optional flavor-boosters if you like:
- Soy sauce
- Rice vinegar
- Sugar
- Red chili pepper (optional)
- Dashi (optional)
- Mirin (optional)
- Grated ginger (optional)
- Myoga ginger (optional)
- Julienned shiso (optional)
- Garlic (optional)
- Sesame seeds (optional)
After you put your ingredients in the soy sauce marinade, let it pickle in the refrigerator.
For any vegetables with high moisture contents such as daikon and cucumber, excess moisture should be extracted prior to pickling to prevent mold growth or diluting the pickling liquid. Sprinkle salt (roughly 5% of the weight of the vegetable) and leave it for 15 minutes. Then quickly rinse under water and squeeze water out (or pat dry with a towel).
What to Serve with Shoyuzuke
Just like Shiozuke and Misozuke, Shoyuzuke is definitely one of the easiest ways to enjoy vegetables. For a quick dinner, I often serve these pickled vegetables as a side with steamed rice and miso soup and I’d add a protein dish like Miso Cod or Chicken Tempura. I also love adding the pickled vegetables on Ochazuke for a quick, simple, and healthy snack.
Japanese Ingredient Substitution: If you want to look for substitutes for Japanese condiments and ingredients, click here.
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Tsukemono – Shoyuzuke (Soy Sauce Pickling)
Ingredients
- 1 lb Komatsuna (or any leafy greens)
- 1 red chili pepper
For the Pickling Solution
- 2 Tbsp sugar
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 1½ Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients. Important: Measure the weight of the vegetables. You will need a heavy object (and a plate) that‘s 1½–2 times the weight of the vegetables.
- Cut 1 lb Komatsuna into 2-inch (5-cm) pieces. Chop 1 red chili pepper into smaller pieces. If you want mild spiciness, discard the seeds.
- Add the greens to a 1-gallon glass jar (or any big container).
- Add the chopped red chili pepper, 2 Tbsp sugar, ¼ cup soy sauce, 1½ Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned).
- WIth your hands (covered with plastic gloves), mix everything together well.
- Place a flat plate on top of the greens and then put a weight (1½–2 times the weight of the vegetables) on top of the plate. I used a mason jar filled with water.
- Close the lid (or cover with plastic wrap) and set aside at room temperature for 6 hours.
- The image shows the pickles after 6 hours. The greens are completely submerged in the liquid.
- Squeeze the liquid out and transfer it to an airtight container. Enjoy.
To Store
- Store the Shoyuzuke in the refrigerator for up to a week.
I sometimes buy soy sauce pickled daikon with sanshou at the supermarket (I live in Kyoto). I love it, but it is expensive. I will definitely give it a try with your recipe, thank you very much!
Hi Iván! Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post!
Yes! Please give it a try. Hopefully, you can add Sansho to twist the flavor to your liking!😉
Hi Nami! You said high moisture vegetables should have the excess liquid removed with salt first. Can you explain a little more how to do that? Do you salt them then drain the liquid? Do you also rinse off the extra salt? Or just leave it on?
Hi Justine! Thanks for asking! I added this to the post.
For any vegetables with high moisture contents such as daikon and cucumber, excess moisture should be extracted prior to pickling to prevent mold growth or diluting the pickling liquid. Sprinkle salt (roughly 5% of the weight of the vegetable) and leave it for 15 minutes. Then quickly rinse under water and squeeze water out (or pat dry with a towel).
OMG. The pickle tastes so delicious. I ate it with only rice and a protein for 3 days consecutive. The seasoning before adding to the greens is so good on itself also. Thanks for this awesome recipe, Nami !
Hi Kate! Thank you so much for trying my recipe! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed it. Thank you for your kind feedback. xo
Can you reuse the brine?
Hi Dave! We usually do not use the same brine because water from the vegetables diluted the brine… you can add more salt if you want to use it, but it’s hard to calculate…
[…] Shoyuzuke (醤油漬け) – soy sauce […]
[…] as they take away the texture. Instead, you could serve it with a side of blanched broccoli or leafy greens or pickled […]
In making Miso soup can you add or should you add Iriko Dashi to Awase Dashi and if so what quantity? Don’t want to make my Miso soup too fishy for my guest
Hi Greg! Iriko dashi is quite fishy, so I wouldn’t add it or use it to make miso soup for your guest. 🙂
My dad (Hiroshima) used to make a soy sauce, ginger based pickling dish made from tuna that was too old for sashimi. Any ideas would be welcome…Thanks
Hi James! I think your dad made was Maguro Shoyuzuke. Tuna should be still fresh enough to eat raw, but when you can’t eat on the first day, we can marinade in the soy sauce to enjoy the next day (you will not make this dish with the freshest raw fish). Not necessarily “pickling”, it’s more like marinating.
If the dish he made was being cooked, then we make kind of like karaage with tuna after soaking in soy sauce and dredging in potato starch etc. Does that something he made?
[…] Shoyuzuke (醤油漬け) – soy sauce […]
Hi Nami, I recently stumbled across your blog and youtube channel. I cannot wait to try some of these recipes! 🙂 For this recipe, can I replace the rice vinegar with chinese brand rice vinegar or sushi rice vinegar? Thank you!
Hi Amanda! Welcome to JOC! Hope you find some recipes that you like from my site. 🙂
Sushi rice vinegar already has salt, sweetener (sugar) in it, so I don’t recommend, but you can use Chinese rice vinegar. Never tasted it, but should be okay. Taste it and adjust the vinegar amount. Enjoy!
Hi Nami – I love your site and your recipes, especially today’s soy sauce tsukemono. However, I do try to avoid white sugar and I wonder if it is really necessary for this and other Japanese dishes. If it is just to add sweetness perhaps something can be substituted, but if it provides some chemical reaction then perhaps it is necessary to the pickling process. Can you help? Thanks very much!
Hi Mara! Thank you for reading my blog!
I think this article is pretty interesting (please translate to English on Chrome)
https://sugar.alic.go.jp/japan/view/jv_0005c.htm
With just salt (shiozuke), the pickle gets sour due to the lactic acid fermentation. So sweetener such as sugar is introduced to have a more balanced flavor of tsukemono. If you taste it, you can tell it’s not “sweet” pickle, but it’s there to keep the balance. You can maybe try it out without sugar… I don’t use artificial sweeteners so I’m not sure how it would affect the dish.
As for overall Japanese food, you know Japanese seasoning such as soy sauce and miso are fermented soybeans and its salt content is pretty high. So if you don’t add any sweetener, you have salty food. It’s okay for some food, but you will see mirin or sugar is added to have a balanced flavor. A lot of “Japanese” or “Asian” recipes shared here in the US tend to be quite saucy and use a lot of soy sauce (and sugar of course to counter), but we don’t need to make it so saucy. If you look at the majority of recipes in Japan, you noticed that condiments are usually not that much. Light flavoring, even though we use salty condiments or sugar. So I encourage you to keep the amount of usage low, and slowly adjust the amount of sugar. Some foods are definitely on the sweeter side, and it’s my intention to keep the flavor authentic as possible. But you can definitely cut down if it’s a food you never tried before and don’t know what the “real” flavor tastes like (sometimes it’s easier when you don’t expect certain flavor – you can be more flexible). Hope this helps! 🙂
I love tsukemono BUT have to watch my salt consumption. Any ideas about making lower salt/alternate ingredient tsukemono?
Considering the tsukemono is to preserve vegetables, salt is necessary especially to keep for a long time. However, you can still enjoy Asazuke (quick pickling). They are much lower in salt content (because you have to eat within 2-3 days) and it’s just to withdraw water from vegetables and seasoning. I like adding shiso leaves which gives nice fragrance and flavor, and even with less salt, it still makes refreshing pickles.
Li – try using Tamari low sodium soy sauce
Summer is dawning and you reminded me to break out the skimone press – LOL
Hi Davilyn! What is the skimone press?
@ Nami……It is the way we round eyes pronounce Tsukemono – LOL
Oh! Hahahaha! 😀
Hi Nami, I love Japanese pickles and so am enjoying your series very much. I wondered whether the mix could be reused after the first batch or is it too diluted?
Hi Sally! Because the salt/sugar content is low in this recipe, I don’t recommend to recycle this liquid because you can’t tell if there is any bacteria growth (from being diluted) etc. However, you can boil the liquid (kill any bacteria growth) and adjust the taste. 🙂
Nami san – first time for me to try to pickle using soy sauce. The result is good and there is an umami from soy sauce that is different than salt pickles. Since the left over liquid taste so good (lots of umami from the soy sauce and the water extracted fr the veggies), i am boiling it and keeping it for other purpose. Any idea on how best to use it? Which dish or other recipe that you would recommend to best utilise that liquid?
Hi Lee, We are glad to hear you enjoyed this Tsukemono. We currently don’t have the recipe that uses the leftover liquid on the site. But you may use it as a seasoning for Sautee, or pure over a scrambled egg, or use as a dipping sauce, etc. Maybe try using the sauce for this as seasoning?
https://www.justonecookbook.com/warm-mushroom-salad-sesame-dressing/
Happy Cooking!
Many thanks Nami san for the advise. I will try that warm mushroom salad next 👍😀
[…] Shoyuzuke (醤油漬け) – soy sauce […]