Our Verdict
When comparing hoisin sauce to teriyaki sauce, we picked the teriyaki sauce.
Why?
Neither are great! But spoonful for spoonful, the hoisin sauce has about 5x as much sugar.
Of course, exact amounts will vary by brand, but the hoisin will invariably be much more sugary than the teriyaki.
On the flipside, the teriyaki sauce may sometimes have slightly more salt, but they are usually in approximately the same ballpark of saltiness, so this is not a big deciding factor.
As a general rule of thumb, the first few ingredients will look like this for each, respectively:
Hoisin:
- Sugar
- Water
- Soybeans
Teriyaki:
- Soy sauce (water, soybeans, salt)
- Rice wine
- Sugar
In essence: hoisin is a soy-flavored syrup, while teriyaki is a sweetened soy sauce
Wondering about that rice wine? The alcohol content is negligible, sufficiently so that teriyaki sauce is not considered alcoholic. For health purposes, it is well under the 0.05% required to be considered alcohol-free.
For religious purposes, we are not your rabbi or imam, but to our best understanding, teriyaki sauce is generally considered kosher* (the rice wine being made from rice) and halal (the rice wine being de-alcoholized by the processing, making the sauce non-intoxicating).
Want to try some?
You can compare these examples side-by-side yourself:
Enjoy!
