Soy sauce is a very flavorful ingredient used in modern cuisine, western cuisine but most of all in most delicious eastern dishes. The sauce is made from fermented soybeans and wheat.

The country of origin of the soy sauce is China, where it has been used for cooking for over 1,000 years! Today, it’s one of the best-known soy products worldwide. 

Yeast extract is playing an essential role in reducing the salt content without sacrificing the flavor. In addition, yeast extract convinces other characteristics that support a healthy diet: it is a natural food and consists of proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals.

In this article, we will discuss how yeast extract is used in soy sauces. 

Advantages of yeast Extract in soy sauce

There are three main advantages in using yeast extract in Soy Sauce, we are going to explore them in detail, so you too can become aware of them!

1. Improve the umami taste

Science recognizes only four basic tastes — bitter, salty, sour, and sweet. However, nowadays, we are well aware that these are not enough. In Japanese culture, the notion of a fifth taste has been present for a very long time, and it is referred to as umami. The name in Japanese was not translated into any other language and remains like this everywhere: umami.

Today, food formulators acknowledge this new flavor umami as a pleasant savory taste sensation that is considered to “rounds out” or “complete” a particular taste. It provides deliciousness to meat, fish, and also poultry products. We can say with confidence that this taste enhances the flavor of food.

The challenge for many food formulators and culinary professionals is to deliver this umami taste that makes any food taste amazing while maintaining clean, simple ingredient statements. Today customers’ demands are so difficult. They want quality food, simple ingredients, and great taste: this is possible to achieve thanks to umami flavor. This can be accomplished by adding yeast extract, an ingredient rich in glutamate acid, an amino acid responsible for instilling the umami taste in foods. Just a tiny bit of soy sauce can do the trick.

2. Reduce the salt content

Here are some “boring details” that would make you fully understand this concept.

Adding more than 0.4% yeast extract to 0.8% NaCl solution can significantly improve the salty taste of soy sauce. When adding 0.8%, the mouthfeel of saltiness is equivalent to 1.1% NaCl solution, which means the salt consumption has been cut by 27%.

This means that you can achieve the saltiness desired with less actual salt! Also, the taste that we can perform is more balanced.

This is why people who cannot consume much salt are still allowed to have soy sauce in their diet, and they love it!

We are all aware that salt can contribute to cardiac diseases, kidney problems, fluid retention, high pressure, etc. Opting for soy sauce is a healthy choice instead 

3.Improve the lingering taste and mouthfeel.

Yeast extract contains many umami substances (such as amino acids, peptides, nucleotides, etc.). These can boost lingering taste and improve the mouthfeel in foods. 

Adding yeast extracts in Soy sauce can effectively provide delectable flavor and a more well-balanced mouthfeel.

The enhancement that yeast extract provides to foods is significant since it makes food tastes good for most palates, even the more demanding ones.

It’s not a secret that Yeast extract is used in very chic and famous restaurants recognized worldwide.

Using yeast extract in soy sauce in different regions of the planet:

The food taste varies from region to region in the world. Western palates prefer blanded food, and eastern can tolerate more spices and hot flavors. The reason can be the culture, the lifestyle, the environment, and different practices. The ingredients of any food product are slightly different from place to place, so it is the yeast extract in soy sauce. Let’s discuss the quantity of yeast extract in soy sauce in China, Japan, and Indonesia. The biggest consumers of this product are in southeast and western Asia.

The consumption of soy sauce is increasing year by year all around the world, where Asian cuisine is continuously becoming more and more popular.

Do you know that not all soy sauces are the same? We will explain it to you in the next paragraph for the most relevant consuming countries.

1. How To Use Yeast Extract In Chinese Soy Sauce

Here the soy sauce contains different ingredients, but let’s focus on the yeast extract: the recommended dosage quantity is from 0.5% to 1.5% when used in paste form. In the powder form of yeast extract, the percentage varies from 0.3% to 0.8%.

The paste Yeast extract recommended is standard yeast extract or umami yeast extract.

2.How To Use Yeast Extract In Japanese Soy sauce 

Many of us know that yeast extract is the core of Japanese Soy sauce. It is available in all those Japanese kitchens that you see in restaurants and Japanese houses. It has a rich taste and is used in nearly all Japanese recipes. 

The dosage of yeast extract in Japanese style should be between 0.5% to 1.0% only and not more than that. 

The recommended Yeast Extract for this kind of soy sauce is Kokumi yeast extract or umami yeast extract in the paste form.

3.How to Use Yeast Extract In Indonesian soy sauce 

Yeast extract is a common ingredient in Indonesian recipes. This sauce amplifies the overall taste of the recipe. It is used to give natural flavors foods without compromising on the actual taste of soy sauce. 

The actual dosage of yeast extract should be between 0.5% to 1.5% in paste form & 0.3% to 0.8% in its powdered form. 

In this case, the Yeast Extract recommended is flavored yeast extract. 

Soy sauce with low salt content has become a trend

Modern medicine teaches us that the intake of salt in excess is very unhealthy. That’s why people worldwide are trying to reduce its use, but many claims that food does not taste as good and lacks flavor without it.

The problem is not the salt itself. It is sodium. The use of Yeast Extract contributes to sodium reduction up to 20-40%! In this way, you don’t have to give up the taste at all!

Less salt doesn’t mean less flavor. It means a well-balanced amount of Yeast extract that helps achieve the taste you are looking for.

Yeast Extract is rich in glutamic acids, amino acids, nucleotides, and peptides, magnifying the sodium ion responses and the savory taste receptors on the tongue. By adding it, the reduction of NaCl consumption in low-sodium salt will not decrease the gustatory sensation in foods. 

Conclusion

Thanks to this article, we know that yeast extract gives us a lot of luxury flavors to prepare our food differently and make any food tastier and healthier to reduce salt content. Use a blend of soy sauce to make your food tasty and healthy so you can eat with no guilt at all.