There are many savory Chinese sauces and pastes made from fermented soybeans. Instantly adding flavor to stir-fries, stews and other dishes, you can find them stacked side-by-side in any Chinese grocery store. Just look for the aisle with a dizzying array of soy sauces, vinegars, rice wines, hot sauces, and bean pastes!
In this article, we’ll talk about ground bean sauce.
What Is Ground Bean Sauce?
Ground bean sauce is made with fermented yellow soybeans. Not to be confused with regular bean paste AKA sweet soybean paste (豆瓣酱), which is made with little more than soybeans, wheat, and salt, it usually has additional seasonings, including sesame oil, sugar, and spices. In terms of flavor, it is mild and salty, with the umami-laden punch of fermented soybeans.
Here’s a look at the ingredients labeling:
You may also confuse it with sweet bean sauce, AKA “sweet flour sauce.” It is darker in color and generally not made with majority soybeans at all, but from fermented wheat flour.
Also don’t confuse it with Hoisin Sauce or Chee Hou Sauce, which ARE made with soybeans and can look similar! Each has a slightly different flavor profile, but that said, these various pastes and sauces do have shared qualities, with differences that can be hard to describe without tasting them side by side.
How To Use It
The Koon Chun brand of ground bean sauce has been around for some time and in Cantonese, our family called it “meen see jeung.” We used it in stewed dishes and in Chinese BBQ spare rib sauces like our recipe for Takeout Style Chinese Spare Ribs.
Buying & Storing
The most recognizable brand that we gravitate towards is Koon Chun, which we’ve been using for years. It’s very clearly labeled in English, which makes finding it easy! Find it at Chinese grocery stores or online. Lee Kum Kee is the other brand we usually see at our Chinese grocery.
Note that you may also find Koon Chun’s “Bean Sauce.” The jars look remarkably similar, as are the names:
Both sauces contain soybean paste, water, sugar, salt, and sesame oil. The only difference we can see is that ground bean sauce has additional spices, while bean sauce does not (see the ingredients list comparison below. Ground bean sauce is on the left and bean sauce is on the right).
Our verdict? You can use them interchangeably, but if you have to choose between the two at the grocery store, pick up the ground bean sauce. Those extra spices can’t hurt!
Store in the refrigerator, and always use a clean utensil when spooning some out for a recipe. It will keep for up to a year this way.
Substitutions
If you can’t find ground bean sauce, you can substitute a similar fermented soybean sauce like hoisin sauce, chee hou sauce, or regular bean paste.
We know, we just talked about how it’s important to not confuse all of these sauces. But if you need a substitution, they’re reasonable stand-ins for each other!
Our Favorite Recipes That Use This Ingredient
- Beijing Fried Sauce Noodles (Zha Jiang Mian)
- Braised Pork Rib & Taro Stew
- Takeout Style Chinese Spare Ribs
- Crispy Duck Wrap
If you have further questions about this ingredient, let us know in the comments––we try to answer every single one.
Is there a gluten free option of these sauces?
Finally an explanation on the different Chinese bean sauces and bean pastes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood in front of the grocery store shelves trying to make heads or tails about which kind the recipe wants. Another puzzle for me ribs tofu, not the soft, medium, firm white kind in boxes that you can find everywhere. How about the kind that look like little brown pillows, I get them in casseroles in restaurants, also the dried tofu skins? How are these used?
Hi Vivienne, check our Tofu and Bean curd Ingredients page for the answers to most of your questions!
Is this the same as 黄豆酱？
They are pretty much the same, Paulina. The difference is in the brand.
Greetings!
I found your website this past February 2021 and have made several of your delicious dishes! I really want to make ZHA JIANG MIAN but simply cannot find real TIAN MIAN JIANG nor Ground Bean Sauce.
I live near Annapolis, MD, and NO decent asian groceries around me. However, Global Foods and H-Mart are within 45 minute drive. But when I looked at their websites for either of these two sauces, they do not list them.
Do you have any recommendations for Asian Grocery stores in Maryland that would carry these (and other hard-to-find ingredients)?
BTW, I was able to get some special ingredients from The Mala Market, but they don’t carry these two bean sauces.
Thank you!!!
Hi Howard, I don’t know of any local stores, but I have to believe there is one near Annapolis. I did find a 99 ranch in Gaithersburg Maryland, but it is an hour away.
Hi Howard, you can also look online at websites like sayweee.com, justasianfood.com, umamicart.com, yamibuy.com, and mimodian.com!
Thank you so very much for the clarity of what to buy regarding ingredients, being a “Toe Jeur Noi”(my father is from Toi San and my mother is also Chinese, born in Los Angeles, CA, her parents were from Hong Kong area…it has often been a problem for me when looking for ingredients while being unable to read to Chinese. We started a Chinese ‘take-out’ restaurant in Arcadia, CA over 60 years ago. Andrew, the owner of Panda Inn, Panda Express frequently discussed common topics of interest regarding the restaurant…and whether to franchise or not. He was just a young man at that time. Our restaurant was merely a tiny “take-out” style of restaurant but with the ability to serve a few people at tables on our small patio and small dining room. My father was an extremely successful Insurance Salesman for Occidental Life, which later became Transamerica and needed some “tax shelters”, so one of his side businesses was to open a Chinese “Take-out” restaurant, but with a slight “twist”, he hired chefs fr the famous Beverly Hills restaurant called “Trader Joe’s”. He designed our restaurant to be “open” so that the public could stand at the front counter area and ‘watch’ as the chefs prepared their food. Thank you for being so specific & detailed in your recipes. I value you in helping my daughter to cook Cantonese foods, she told me about you.
Hi Donna, thank you so much for sharing a bit of your family history and such a cool story!
Interestingly this sauce seems to be impossible to find here in Shanghai. When asked about it, my wife (who is from Shaanxi) had never heard of it. Maybe it is more of a Hong Kong thing.
Hi DK, you may be right about that – I am quite familiar with it and it’s used in quite a few Cantonese dishes.
So, I’d had a jar of this for a while and thought it was delicious but didn’t know how to use it…I had the idea to use it as a substitute for soy sauce in a marinade, and it was exactly what I wanted. Soy sauce has that telltale sharp taste and it’s so salty, and when it’s been cooked a long time it starts to remind me weirdly of bologna flavor…with bean sauce, the flavor was richer, subtler, and there was room to season the dish. Then I tried it as a substitute for oyster sauce in Chinese brown sauce with broccoli, and it complimented the ginger taste particularly well. So now the jar is empty! I would recommend using this sauce in just about any sauce or marinade that calls for soy sauce, especially if you aren’t that into soy sauce. And for vegans, as a substitute for oyster sauce.
Hi Lisa, thanks for sharing your views and experience with ground bean sauce!