Tian Mian Jiang, also known as black bean sauce, is a cooking sauce that originated in China and is today widely used in Chinese cuisines. This sauce is made from fermented and salt-preserved soya beans.
It is mainly used as a table sauce, condiment or topping that is meant to add rich flavors to existing dishes. With its pungent, deep, savory and subtle flavors with earthy aromas, Tian Mian Jiang is well able to transform and enrich your plate of food.
In case you are wondering what to do if you can’t get hold of this sauce, we’ve listed a few substitutes that you can use instead. Do you want something else special to compliment your meals in its place? Then read on!
More About Tian Mian Jiang
Only a culinary expert or professional chef – someone with intricate and precise tastes and palates – would be familiar with Tian Mian Jiang.
It is famously used in various Chinese cuisines such as curries, dumplings, soups and noodles, all of which would be incomplete without this sought-after sauce.
When it comes to diverse Chinese specialties, this ingredient is predominantly used in Cantonese and Sichuan recipes. This sauce is starkly dark brown to black in color and is smooth and thick in texture. Taste-wise, it is both salty and spicy with a touch of sweetness.
Surprisingly, though, this famed sauce has nothing to do with beans – yes, you’ve heard that right! In fact, it is primarily fermented wheat and soy, and consists of some of the rich flavors that come from garlic, onions, and herbs.
Additionally, Tian Mian Jiang is a hearty topping on any meal because it contains no cholesterol or saturated fats. This is why it might be regarded as a staple in many countries and is used as ketchup in certain parts of the world.
This elegant condiment is found in most supermarkets or in your everyday store. However, if you have any difficulty finding it then just have a closer look in the Asian sections – you should surely find it there! Otherwise, you’ll have to find a substitute that can somehow fill in for your desired tastes.
Possible Tian Mian Jiang Substitutes
- Sweet Bean Paste
Unlike Tian Mian Jiang, this paste is cooked in beans with salt and sugar. The beans are boiled and softened and then turned into a paste, which is obviously used to enhance and supplement your dish.
This might not provide the same tang or scent as Tian Mian Jiang, but it adds a fermented touch, which is similar to the flavor profile of Tian Mian Jiang.
However, before you add this to your recipe, you need to consider that this sweet bean paste – as its name suggests – can add a unique sweet flavor to your dish.
Therefore, to neutralize the sweetness in such a way that it isn’t the dominant flavoring, you’ll have to use and add extra seasoning.
Hoisin sauce is slightly lighter in color than its Tian Mian Jiang counterpart. If you plan to use it as an alternative, then add a little food coloring to it to give your dish the exact color scheme that mirrors Tian Mian Jiang.
Along with its rather subtle color, hoisin sauce is thick and fragrant, and also sweet and spicy in taste. It includes soybeans, fennel, red chili peppers and garlic in its make-up, which draw some similarities with Tian Mian Jiang.
This type of topping can be used as a sort of basting as it tastes a lot like an American-style barbecue sauce, but ultimately, it has a unique flavor all together. You may therefore need to add extra seasonings or spices to imitate the precise tastes and textures of Tian Mian Jiang.
- Miso Paste
The famous Miso Paste is a Japanese specialty which has a rich and deep flavor profile. This paste is also loaded with vitamins and nutrients, thereby providing considerable health benefits.
Advantageously, this paste was considered as the go-to food for the feudal people of Japan due to its rich nutritional properties. Miso paste is also made from fermented soybeans, which is mixed with salt and koji, a type of fungus that is used to make the Japanese alcoholic beverage sake.
This alternative however contains wheat, barley, rice and aspergillus, giving it a richer and saltier flavor than Tian Mian Jiang. So, before you add a drizzle of this sauce to your recipe, you should perhaps adjust its taste by tweaking it with other spices or herbs.
- Oyster Sauce
As the name suggests, oyster sauce was historically made from the boiling and shimmering of oysters for hours on end. This gave the sauce its unique savory and tangy flavor.
However, today, that exact tanginess is reproduced using salt, sugar, some water, and cornstarch, as well as the drawn out oyster juices. This infusion is a critical ingredient in most Chinese, Thai and Malay cuisines and is often used for stir-fries, meat marinades and as a dipping sauce.
Oyster sauce has a classical dark color and gives your recipe the exact shade of brown that Tian Mian Jiang would provide. You can however combine oyster sauce with a bit of soya sauce in order to produce that same rich and vibrant flavor.
This combination can create the umami extract, which is described as a meaty and savory flavor that deepens the taste of various dishes such as broths or cooked meals.
- Soy Sauce and Plums
By using plums, you can infuse it with soy sauce into a concentration that best resembles Tian Mian Jiang. You can boil the plums with brown sugar and water before adding the soy sauce into the mixture.
You would then stir this blend with garlic, 5-spice powder, sesame oil and vinegar in order to create a sweet and salty sensation that is similar to Tian Mian Jiang. It may be a bit different in color and appearance, but it would at least provide more or less the same zest and textures to your recipe.
- Teriyaki Sauce
Similarly to Tian Mian Jiang, Teriyaki sauce has a sweet and salty tang with a hint of sake’s flavor. It is made by boiling together soy sauce, honey or sugar and sake. That combination needs to be boiled until the mixture becomes thick and concentrated.
You can also add ingredients such as sesame, pineapple and garlic juice or a ginger juice for deeper flavors that mimic Tian Mian Jiang.
Teriyaki sauce, upon boiling it enough, is supposed to become sticky, which makes it suitable for the basting and glazing of meats. Furthermore, it is ideal for stir-fries, veggies, fish, chicken, meat marinade and even as a dip.
- Soy Sauce
Soy sauce is used when you want to add concentrated saltiness to dishes without drowning it in stronger soy flavors.
It is obviously lighter in color – a tint of red-brown to be exact – than Tian Mian Jiang so you could choose to add darker food coloring to it to resemble a similar contrast.
This sauce works well with recipes such as Chow Mein, soups and broths – like noodle soup – rice, sushi and for marinating purposes.
- Tamari Sauce
Tamari Sauce is a type of Japanese soy sauce that is a by-product of miso. It’s made from soybeans, water, salt and fermented rice. It is essentially the liquid of fermented soybeans after it has been drained. Notably, it has to be fermented for one year or longer!
This version is thicker in texture than soy sauce and is a bit less salty. Soy sauce also has a thinner consistency and the saltiness is rather sharp on the palate. In appearance, Tamari is probably one of the darkest forms of soy sauce.
It has a rich umami taste with a subtle sweetness and it can be used in any recipe that calls for pungent flavors with less salt. Tamari is ideally used for soups, marinades, stews, stir-fries, as well as for tofu and as a dipping sauce.
Summing it up
Ultimately, the above mentioned sauces and alternatives would not wholly act as potent substitutes for Tian Mian Jiang. This sauce is unique on its own and the flavors it produces cannot easily be replicated.
However, these alternatives can be suitable for smaller dishes where certain flavors won’t necessarily overwhelm a dish. Every dish prioritizes different flavor profiles, and some won’t only depend on Tian Mian Jiang to be tasty.
Though, if you’re cooking a great recipe with authentic flavoring, a replacement won’t be a good idea or option. Most experienced chefs rarely use any alternatives for Tian Mian Jiang, because they’re so familiar with the uniqueness and palatable flavors this special sauce offers.
For example, some recipes demand a strong fermented soybean taste, and in that case, we won’t advise using an alternative. If you can’t find this sauce at your nearest supermarket, you could try ordering it online, even though it is commonly available worldwide.
If none of that works, you can choose to make your own Tian Mian Jiang sauce at home. All you need is:
- A bit of wheat
- Fermented black beans
- White onions
- Garlic cloves
- Ginger
- Vegetable oil
- Light soy sauce
- Some sugar.
You would then need to cook all these ingredients together until it resembles the original sauce and provides the ideal flavor. After all, some recipes – that contain sharp Tian Mian Jiang seasonings – can’t be compromised.
In those instances, you should rather enjoy the unique tastes that this amazing Chinese sauce offers.