(Looking for a quick American teriyaki sauce recipe and don’t want a history lesson? Skip to the recipe below!)

I remember my first delicious bite of Teriyaki at my parent’s restaurant as a kid, growing up in a small town in Canada. My parents ran a Chinese-Canadian restaurant, but we had teriyaki on the menu, as most “Asian” restaurants did. I remember my parent’s recipe having a distinct garlicky sweetness to it and a pronounced ginger flavour. Even then I thought, “isn’t Teriyaki Japanese?” But whatever Chinese or Japanese restaurant I visited, there it was on the menu, in every Canadian city I visited. How strange!

It wasn’t until several years ago, that I continued my food explorations and deep dove into the origins of teriyaki. What I discovered was that teriyaki as most of us likely know was actually invented closer to home in Canada than I realized, sharing more of a connection with Tacoma than with Tokyo!

An image of Toshi’s Teriyaki original store in Mill Creek, Washington near Seattle. (source: toshisgrill.com)

The History and Rise of Teriyaki in America

Teriyaki comes from the Japanese word teri (照り), which means “shiny,” describing the appearance of the sauce once applied to food, and yaki (焼き), which means something that is grilled. In Japan it less so refers to a specific sauce, but rather a style of cooking in Japan since the 1600s, using a blend of soy sauce, mirin and sake (Japanese cooking alcohol) and from coating and grilling things several times to create a thick glaze to coat food.

Teriyaki Sauce and Flavour As We Now Know It In North America

If you ask anyone who’s tasted teriyaki in North America, they will likely describe the taste of teriyaki almost identically across the board. This standardized teriyaki flavour profile is actually very distinctly, American.

Teriyaki’s journey in America likely started in Hawaii, linked to Japanese immigrants who came to work on the sugar plantations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Trying to emulate a taste of home and with little access to Japanese ingredients, this sauce started in Hawaii to take on a more, Westernized, American form, using closer-to-home ingredients, such as raw brown sugar or pineapple juice for sweetness, while also infusing some local twists, such as adding native Hawaiian ginger to give Teriyaki a more homegrown kick.

The Rise of Teriyaki from the ’60s onwards in Seattle

It’s when teriyaki finally reached the mainland of the United States by way of Seattle that it finally exploded into the cultural cuisine that we know and love today. Japanese and other Asian cooks looking to bring something unique, yet affordable, to build a life in America in Seattle took teriyaki and ran with it, building combo plates of grilled, glazed meats in a sweet and savoury sauce, served with rice to soak up that delicious, umami-filled sauce. But it wasn’t just individual Japanese newcomers that pushed teriyaki into nationwide recognition – big Japanese brands such the Japanese sauce giant Kikkoman, who were also looking to make inroads into America around that time also tapped into teriyaki to lead the charge, introducing bottled teriyaki sauces across the nation around that time to culinary adventurous Americans.

For those looking to pin teriyaki’s explosion to one person, that title may best lie with Toshi Kasahara, who is considered to be the godfather of teriyaki in Seattle. He opened Toshi’s Teriyaki Grill, often cited as Seattle’s first teriyaki restaurant in Lower Queen Anne back in 1976. By the mid 90s, Seattle had over 175 restaurants selling teriyaki! Seattle’s style of teriyaki started almost immediately to spread rapidly all across North America. Seattle to this day stands out as America’s most beloved city for this savoury dish.

Teriyaki in Seattle Today

Today, Toshi’s is still considered one of the best spots for authentic Teriyaki in Seattle. Chef and prominent food writer, J. Kenji López-Alt, has created a great series where he’s ranking and reviewing all of the Seattle Teriyaki shops. You can check out his ridiculously extensive Teriyaki restaurant map complete with video reviews, HERE!

Kenji also did an interview with the legend Toshi Kasahara (owner of Toshi’s Teriyaki Grill) himself, which you can view below:

The main takeaway for me from all this teriyaki research is that teriyaki has been able to take over tastebuds, not because it’s Japanese or American, but quite simply because “delicious” and simple has no borders. While not everyone has a commercial kitchen, anyone can make a simple and versatile teriyaki sauce or marinade at home!

Here’s the simplest version of this sauce, and by adjusting or adding the sweet, salty components slightly, you’ll easily find a sauce you can whip up in less than 5 minutes that you’ll never get sick of.

A Simple American Teriyaki Sauce Recipe

I use basic ingredients ratios here to make it simple, whether you want one cup to use to marinade a whole chicken, or just few tablespoons as sauce to eat with rice!

American Teriyaki Sauce Recipe – Base Ingredients Ratios:

• 1 part soy sauce.
• Sugar to sweeten (I would add half a tablespoon until your desired sweetness).
• 1 part Japanese cooking wine (you can use sherry, white wine or apple cider vinegar if you’d like, but I’d add this last little by little so you can adjust for taste).
• 1 part mirin (mirin is essentially cooking wine and sugar, so you can play with your ratios if you don’t have any on hand).
• 1 teaspoon garlic (minced).
• Optional: 1 teaspoon ginger minced or ground (optional, but my family’s always added ginger and I think it gives it a nice kick!).
• Optional: add a dash of lemon / orange juice (if you’d like it with a sour note, just add a bit in to taste).
• Optional: use cornstarch mixed in water to thicken (use a tablespoon of cornstarch per cup of water per cup for a thicker marinade, or if you want it to thicken from cooking your meat, once this is in there, it will do so).

…stir it to mix, and that’s essentially it! You can adjust the ingredients to find something that suits you. If you like your sauces saltier, add more soy sauce, sweeter, add more sugar. Teriyaki is super versatile.

Once you’ve got your recipe, be warned, it’ll likely make your way into your rotation of meals as it has for me!