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| My nearly finished bottle of homemade Worcestershire sauce |
That Heinz bottle of Worcestershire sauce just stayed on my shelf though, unused. Reading through the label is scary- too many ingredients that I either don't recognize or know specifically to be very unhealthy. Some of those wonderful ingredients include high fructose corn syrup, caramel food coloring, polysorbate 80, sodium benzoate, etc...
Is it any wonder that I decided to look to see if I could make my own Worcestershire sauce, one without any scary ingredients?
This is the recipe that I found, tweaked, and have been using successfully for the past year or so. Its cheaper to make this than to buy Worcestershire sauce, has no scary ingredients, and is also fish free, making it perfect for people that can't or won't eat fish for whatever reason. You can easily make it gluten free by using gluten free soy sauce in the recipe.
Unfortunately, it does have some white sugar in it; I haven't tried yet making this with healthier sweetener options, but I use so little Worcestershire sauce at a time, and the amount of sugar in it is relatively small in comparison, that I don't have a problem using this recipe at this point in time. If anyone has a white sugar free Worcestershire sauce recipe, I'd be glad to try it out. I assume that it would probably work with rapadura, but can't make any guarantees.
Homemade Worcestershire Sauce
Ingredients2 cups vinegar (I use my homemade kombucha vinegar, but apple cider vinegar or other healthy vinegars other than wine vinegar should work)
1⁄2 cup molasses
1⁄2 cup soy sauce
1⁄4 cup tamarind concentrate or 6 tbsp lemon juice)
3 tbsp yellow mustard seeds
3 tbsp salt
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp whole cloves
1⁄2 tsp curry powder
5 cardamom pods, smashed
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 1" stick cinnamon
1 onion, chopped
1 1⁄2" piece ginger, peeled and crushed
1⁄2 cup sugar
Instructions
1. Mix all the ingredients other than the sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Heat sugar until it caramelizes and becomes an amber syrup.
3. Mix together with the other ingredients, whisking well.
4. Cook for 5 minutes more.
5. Transfer to a container.
6. Refrigerate for 3 weeks.
7. Strain out the solids, and then return to the container.
This should last in the refrigerator for a long, long, long time.
Do you use Worcestershire sauce much, if ever? How do you use this condiment? My husband loves it on eggs, and I love using it in homemade BBQ sauce.
Any chance that you'd actually try making this one?
Linking up to Frugal Friday, Food on Friday, Simple Lives Thursday, What's Cooking Wednesday, Works For Me Wednesday, Gluten Free Wednesday
I'm confused about the ingredients list, specifically the tamarind concentrate/lemon juice part. Where I'm from tamarind concentrate is nothing like lemon juice, so I'm a bit confused about the item. It leads me to believe that the tamarind concentrate you find is similar to lemon juice. Am I over-interpreting here?
ReplyDeleteWhile they are obviously not identical, they both lend a sour taste to food, which is why they're interchangeable in this recipe- because the sourness is what is needed.
DeleteThanks! Oh, and one more thing: I found another Worcestershire recipe on your site that's gluten and sugar free in addition to being vegan; between the two recipes, which do you prefer flavour-wise? I generally use this stuff so sparingly that it doesn't bother me one bit if it contains refined sugar, and I'm not gluten-sensitive so that counts for nothing as well.
DeleteMaybe try coconut aminos as a healthier alternative to the soy sauce.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the white sugar questions: substitute date paste for both the molasses and the sugar: date paste has a mild flavour and I substitute in all sorts of recipes.
ReplyDelete