Soy paste is an essential Taiwanese flavoring agent that appears everywhere from bustling night markets to cozy home kitchens, made from cooking coy sauce with rice starch to give it a more viscous, decadent texture akin to oyster sauce. This one is handcrafted with fermented soy beans aged for 450 days, giving the paste its distinct sweet-umami character that sets it apart both from standard soy sauce and other fermented bean products like salty Miso and spicy Sichuan Doubanjiang. Its nutty quality almost reads like roasted peanuts, while its caramel sweetness and savory saltiness hit the palate immediately. Tender flecks of rice are visible throughout the dark brown sauce, adding another layer of toasted flavor.

Handcrafted by multi-generational soy sauce makers, this condiment is made by mixing sweet and juicy Taiwanese pineapple with black soybeans and salt and leaving the mixture to ferment for 180 days in earthenware pots. The golden brown liquid has a fruity fragrance, but that pineapple note mingles with the more savory flavors once the sauce hits your palate and yields a sweet, delicious funkiness and nuanced saltiness. More bright and fruity than the deep caramel of standard soy sauce, the condiment also packs a complex umami flavor not only from the nuttiness of the soy, but also from the distinctive fermented pineapple—a flavor layer that can’t be found in grocery stores.

Megachef Oyster Sauce is made with premium oysters that are harvested off the Gulf of Thailand and smoked over hardwood for a deeper flavor and smoky, grilled aroma. We love its complex yet clean flavor: robust and savory, slightly briny and almost sweet. Although it's prepared by cooking down oysters until their juices caramelize, this sauce does not taste like oysters; rather, it has a molasses-like richness and sweet, savory and umami flavor that's slightly similar to soy sauce. Megachef's version has no added artificial flavors or colors—in contrast, even high-quality brands tend to augment their oyster sauce with ingredients like MSG and caramel coloring, resulting in an artificial taste.

While oyster sauce is mostly used as an ingredient for marinades, stir-fries or flavoring rice or noodle dishes, Megachef's Oyster Sauce is also delicious on its own as a condiment—the sauce's smoother consistency compared to other brands is perfect for dipping or drizzling over dishes.

A traditional condiment made from fermented malted rice, shio koji is known in Japan for packing a punch of umami into everything from marinated meats to savory soups. All shio kojis aren’t created equal, though, for Hanamaruki Foods distills the powerful flavor properties of this essential Japanese ingredient into an easy-to-use liquid form—the only Liquid Shio Koji available on the market—to create the ultimate pantry secret weapon. We love the condiment’s clean, yet bold flavor: salty rounded out with a pronounced sweetness and burst of umami. It’s made by pressing shio koji in its original paste form and filtering until it yields the clear, golden-hued liquid. The product isn’t heat-treated, so its enzymes remain active and effective in rendering meat remarkably moist and juicy, balancing bitterness in veggies like eggplant and adding amino acids for a full-flavored finish to any dish to truly change the way you cook. Use as a marinade for meats and fish, drizzle into salad dressings and sauces to balance savory flavors, or incorporate into baked goods to add a layer of tantalizing complexity.