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.

  • lqdrchrd
    2·
    10 months ago

    I don’t really know anything about cooking Asian food past a curry, but in general I tend to just skip out on unhealthy stuff I won’t miss when I cook at home for my family.

    For example, if I was making barbecue chicken for a gathering, I’d use a good amount of brown sugar for a nice caramelization and depth of flavor. I made it at home for myself last week, however, and just didn’t add the sugar. Was it worse? Sure, a little, but I likely wouldn’t have noticed if you didn’t tell me and it’s one less meal full of sugar.

    I am trying to train myself that not every meal I make has to be a treat, and that sometimes just being healthy and filling is enough.

    • PlantJam@lemmy.world
      2·
      10 months ago

      Going a different direction with the flavors is another option. Lemon pepper chicken instead of barbecue chicken, or a vinaigrette dressing instead of a cream sauce. Some of these alternate recipes still have plenty of intense flavors without being as intense on the calories.

      • Pat12@lemmy.worldOP
        3·
        10 months ago

        This doesn’t really answer my question, these sauces are staples/basics in Asian dishes, we cannot just eliminate entire categories of dishes