Japanese steakhouse ginger sauce for dipping meat and vegetables, or eating with fried rice. It tastes just like the ginger sauce you eat at Japanese restaurants. Just 5 ingredients and done in under 5 minutes!

This is a recipe for the ginger meat sauce served at Japanese steakhouses where they cook in front of you on a teppanyaki or hibachi grill.
I’m sure you’ve been to a Shogun, Taki, Ohana, Benihana, or Japanese Village that serves a very similar dipping sauce. They’re all so tasty!
Does anyone else out there request to have extra ginger sauce at the Japanese restaurant and tell the chef they can skip giving you the seafood mustard sauce?
I know I’m not alone in this. My mother does it too and when others at the table hear us request this, they ask the same thing.
We dip everything into it – the shrimp, chicken, steak, vegetables, Teppanyaki fried rice, you name it. It’s the best meat sauce and it would also make a great marinade.
Japanese steakhouses don’t always offer takeout so we were looking to make the sauce at home and we’ve tried many, many different versions.
This is the closest we’ve come to what our local Japanese steakhouses serve.
What is in Japanese Ginger Sauce?
- Minced Ginger or Ginger Paste
- Diced Yellow Onion
- White Vinegar
- Lemon Juice
- Soy Sauce
How to make Japanese ginger sauce?
Begin by chopping the onion into small pieces. The smaller the better so that the food processor or blender can easily blend them down into sauce.
Mince the ginger root if not already done so. I have found that buying it already minced from the produce section of the grocery is easiest.
Fresh ginger root also works, but it takes a little more time to mince.
To use fresh ginger, cut off any knobby pieces.
The skin is very thin. It’s better to use the side of a spoon to scrape it off than to use a peeler, but a peeler can still work if you’re struggling. Ginger root can have a lot of angles to peel around.
Once you have the skin trimmed down, begin chopping it until it is very fine, or use a garlic press or masher. Add all of the ingredients to the food processor and blend until smooth.
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Japanese Steakhouse Ginger Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons Minced Ginger or Ginger Paste
- ½-3/4 cup Diced Onion, depending on how much you like
- ¼ cup Soy Sauce
- 3 tablespoons Lemon Juice
- 3 tablespoons White Vinegar
Instructions
- Chop onion into small pieces. Peel and mince ginger root if not already done so.
- In a food processor, blend all ingredients until smooth.
- Serve with steak, chicken, seafood, vegetables, or rice.
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Came out perfect …followed recipe. Thank you.
Can’t wait to try this! Can this be frozen?
Absolutely! I have frozen ginger sauce both in an air-tight container and in ice cube trays (so I can thaw a small amount at a time). Both work great! I recommend keeping them frozen up to 3 months for best quality.
How long is this safe for in an air tight container in the fridge? I may have become neurotic about botulism
Hi Elo,
The ginger sauce can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.
Thank you for asking!
-Tiffany
I made this. I added a bit of maple syrup (yes it is amazing) because I wanted a bit of sweetness. Also added a teaspoon of peanut butter powder, so it had that peanut sauce taste. It was delicious. I’d had eaten something similar at a sushi house and I’ve been trying to replicate it. Thanks for the recipe, it helped me get there. I marinated my steak (cut up in small pieces) in the sauce and fried it up in a cast iron pan. Super delicious.
I’m happy that it helped you get to the recipe you were trying to recreate. 🙂 That’s a win!