Soy paste is a uniquely Taiwanese ingredient made from cooking soy sauce with rice starch to give it body. The end result is similar in texture to oyster sauce, with a deeply umami and sweet soy flavor. Use it to glaze stir fries, marinate meats and tofu, or as a ready-to-go sauce for steamed vegetables. It makes a great sauce for dry noodle dishes or dip for danbing (Taiwanese egg crepe).

The Traditional Firewood Soy Paste is an all-purpose soy paste made with black soybeans and glutinous rice flour. This soy paste also contains mirin and licorice for a warm and anise-like flavor, a perfect complement to Chinese five-spice.

Like other Yu Ding Xing soy sauces, this is hand prepared, naturally fermented in vats for 6 months, and heated over a wood fire at the end of the fermentation process.

Tasting Notes and Usage

umami, bright, anisette

Ingredients and Instructions

Water, non-GMO black soybeans, glutinous rice flour, licorice, sea salt, sugar, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, xantham gum, alanine.

The Traditional Firewood Range is Yu Ding Xing's mid-grade range of soy sauces and pastes and does contain added flavoring, unlike their other offerings. These additives are derived naturally from the fermentation of tapioca starch, and interact with the natural glutamates present in the soy sauce to create a flavor that is distinctly Taiwan. We are comfortable with these ingredients, and even though not required to declare them in the ingredients list, we do.

Read more about these ingredients here.

420ml
Gluten-Free
Shelf stable for 2 years from printed manufacturing date. Keep refrigerated after opening.

About Yu Ding Xing

Yu Ding Xing 御鼎興 is a family-run brewery in Xi Luo, Taiwan that has been operating since 1947. They hand make all their soy sauces and soy pastes the traditional way, using earthenware vats, many of which have been in use for decades. You can learn more about their history in our documentary Time, Terroir, Taiwan.