Thank you for this recipe. My carnivore family absolutely love it and the Homemade Oyster Sauce is amazing. No one notices or cares about the absence of meat. It has become a favourite dish that makes a regular appearance on our dinner table.

Hi Christopher, I do like to make the dish quite spicy. You can totally halve the white pepper or only use 1/4 teaspoon if you prefer a less spicy dish.

Hi Dustin, sorry about the confusion! I just updated the recipe and included the ginger in the recipe instructions.

Hi Maggie and thanks for your reply and advice re oyster sauce replacement. I think I’d be totally fine using oyster sauce in small amounts in other recipes but it’s good to know that hoisin sauce would be an acceptable substitute. Years ago our natural food health store carried their own brand of hoisin sauce and it was sooooo good. Sadly they discontinued it and I have yet to find a store-bought hoisin sauce that is any good and I’ve been without hoisin sauce for years now 🙁 My most recent hoisin sauce purchase was Sun Luck brand, and while the thickness and mouth feel was quite good, it was really way too sweet and would be strange to use in a savory dish. I would have known that had I checked the ingredient list before I bought it as sugar, molasses, pumpkin, and some other sweetish ingredient were listed among the first ingredients. Anyway, to make a long rambling story short, I’ll be definitely trying your homemade hoisin sauce recipe soonish.

Hi Beth, I’m glad you and your husband like the dish!
Re oyster sauce replacement – I think the best replacement is hoisin sauce. Oyster sauce adds sweetness and starchiness to the sauce, so you do need to replace it with something similar. Alternatively, you might able to get away with added soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, sugar and cornstarch. Although it’s hard for me to provide a quantity since it might vary depending on the recipe. If you use hoisin sauce as a replacement, I might add less sugar since hoisin is quite sweet.

For me and my taste preferences, I think the oyster sauce was a bit too intense. I felt the oyster sauce gave the dish a bit of a funky (but not in an entirely bad way) taste. I did clean my plate and liked what I ate, but ultimately I just don’t think I’m a fan of oyster sauce. (I bought Premium Oyster Sauce by Lee Kum Kee.) That being said, I am still very glad I made this recipe from your site. My husband really liked it and I will be definitely trying other recipes that you have posted. Again, thank you for sharing 🙂

P.S. What can I do when I come across other recipes of yours that I want to try that have varying amounts of oyster sauce in the dish? Can I just leave it out? Or does the oyster sauce need to be replaced with a different type of thick sauce because that “thickness” might contribute to the body of the sauce??? Like hoisin sauce? Although I’m sure that would change the flavor profile completely. (I have seen vegetarian mushroom not-oyster sauce sauce at the Asian grocery but it’s so pricey that I can’t justify purchasing it, at least not right now since I’ve purchased other items to stock the beginnings of my small Asian pantry.)