Soy sauce deepens the flavor of stock, adds a salty-sweet sheen to fried rice, and makes a plate of dumplings even more delicious. But what exactly makes this complex savory-fresh sauce so delicious? Now, scientists have discovered the proteins and other compounds that give soy sauce its unique flavor, and they believe that proteins and peptides help make it salty. Related research was recently published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Understanding the flavor of food can help producers adjust their growing or manufacturing methods, or modify the final product to enhance certain flavors. Deciphering the flavors of fermented foods like soy sauce is particularly challenging because they arise from complex processes, including the breakdown of proteins and other compounds by microorganisms, which takes a long time.

Although several compounds in soy sauce are known, the complete structure of soy sauce flavoring agents has not yet been developed. Therefore, Thomas Hofmann, chair of food chemistry and molecular sensory science at the Technical University of Munich, and collaborators wanted to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the chemicals behind the flavor profile of soy sauce and test the integrity of this profile by using these compounds to reproduce the unique flavor of this seasoning.

The team first tried to reproduce the flavor of soy sauce using a mixture of compounds known to be contained in the flavor of soy sauce. A group of taste experts found that this recreated soy sauce wasn't quite right - it wasn't as salty or as bitter as authentic soy sauce. The team then searched for other unknown flavor compounds, hypothesizing that small proteins might be the missing ingredient. Using a variety of chemical and taste analysis methods, they found a series of proline-modified dipeptides and other larger, newly discovered proteins that enhanced umami and other flavors.

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