Tonkatsu Sauce (Japanese-Style Barbecue Sauce)

Serve this easy tonkatsu sauce with golden, crispy panko-crusted cutlets.

By
Joshua Bousel
a photo of Joshua Bousel, a Contributing Writer at Serious Eats
Joshua Bousel
Joshua Bousel is a Serious Eats old-timer, having started sharing his passion for grilling and barbecue recipes on the site back in 2008. He continues to develop grilling and barbecue recipes on his own site, The Meatwave, out of his home base of Durham, North Carolina.
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Updated March 19, 2025
A small white square ramekin of tonkatsu sauce next to a fried cutlet.

Serious Eats / Joshua Bousel

Why It Works

  • This sauce gets sweetness and tang from ketchup and Worcestershire sauce, while soy sauce lends a deep, savory flavor.

A few weeks ago I picked up some pork katsu for lunch, only to return to the office and find a vacant space where the that thick sweet and salty tonkatsu sauce should have been. As I tried to down the rather dry and flavorless katsu, I was forced to dig deep into the bowels of my desk to find what must have been a two-year old McDonalds ketchup packet—to inject some sort of sauciness into my fried pork. It was at this point that I vowed never go without my tonkatsu sauce ever again and decided to learn how to make it.

For what tastes like a rather complex sauce, it's very simple to put together. Although eaten alongside Japanese breaded and fried cutlets, the origins are actually British, with tonkatsu sauce being a sweeter and thicker variation of Worcestershire.

A quick mix of ketchup and Worcestershire gets you most of the way there. I added some soy sauce for extra salt, sugar and mirin for more sweetness, and mustard and garlic powder to add complexity. The end result was the exact sauce I was missing that sad day I was forced into using an inferior product to go with my crispy golden katsu.

September 2012

This recipe was cross-tested in 2023 and updated to guarantee best results. For a more flavorful sauce, we increased the amount of Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and Dijon mustard.

Recipe Details

Tonkatsu Sauce (Japanese-Style Barbecue Sauce) Recipe

Prep 5 mins
Active 5 mins
Total 5 mins
Serves 4 servings
Makes 1/2 cup
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Ingredients

  • 1/3 cup ketchup (3 ounces; 88 g)

  • 1/4 cup (60 ml) Worcestershire sauce

  • 3 tablespoons (45 ml) soy sauce

  • 1 tablespoon (15 ml) mirin

  • 1 tablespoon (15 g) granulated sugar

  • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions

  1. In a small bowl, stir together ketchup, Worcestershire, soy sauce, mirin, sugar, mustard, and garlic powder. Use immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a month.

    Whisk in a small bowl of richly-flavored tonkatsu sauce

    Serious Eats / Joshua Bousel

Read More

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
63 Calories
0g Fat
15g Carbs
1g Protein
×
Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories 63
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 0g 0%
Saturated Fat 0g 0%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 1073mg 47%
Total Carbohydrate 15g 5%
Dietary Fiber 0g 1%
Total Sugars 11g
Protein 1g
Vitamin C 3mg 15%
Calcium 27mg 2%
Iron 1mg 7%
Potassium 252mg 5%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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