many east asian dishes included some ready made sauce like 豆瓣酱 or 柱侯酱 in chinese cuisines or 고추장 in korean cuisine. These sauces make our dishes delicious but unfortunately they are very high in salt and/or sugars. Is there some way to make the dishes with these sauces from scratch or without such high salt/sugar? We often have to add sugar in the dish in addition to the sauces. Thanks.
I’m sure this is a similar problem in other cuisines but my question is just about east asian cuisines.
edit: i’m referring to homemade food, not restaurant food.
Most probably you need soy sauce for asian dishes. Luckily there are a bunch of soy types. Maybe you could check out sweet soy sauces, perhaps those have lower sodium content.
I am not referring to soy sauce, I don’t know about gochujang but I have not seen low sodium versions of doubanjiang anywhere, maybe I can’t look around
This is one of the sauces I mean: https://www.malafood.com/en/essential-guide-to-doubanjiangs
are you by chance an enterprising individual? it sounds like you’ve stumbled onto an underserved and untapped market: healthier alternatives to traditional base ingredients. i’d be very surprised if there were not methods waiting to be discovered for prepping bean paste, fish sauce, doubanjiang etc in more health-conscious ways. the question is, who can combine culinary expertise, fermentation knowledge, cultural respect and a drive to innovate?
i think the problem is all of these pastes are fermented and i at least don’t know how to ferment something without using a lot of salt. even make your own doubanjiang paste will tell you to use a lot of salt to ferment the beans
i don’t know either, but i do know that with the kimchi and kombucha trend train taking over the west, learning about fermentation should be much more accessible. maybe there are some creative alternative prep methods, like pairing less salt with celery juice, or even seaweed - or starting with leftover whey/brine from a previous fermentation. if i were you i’d try a deep focused dive on fermentation methods around the world and experiment. hope you figure something out and when you do, brand it and revolutionize cuisine!