Does soy sauce expire?

Question

Being mostly made of salt, I often used soy sauce well beyond (as in "two years and more") its expiration date without ever having a problem. Is that a bad idea, and did I actually take some health risks doing so?

Answer 1

Still tasty implicitly says that the sauce stays indefinitely technically edible. The expiration date is only for quality purposes. I think the sauce probably doesn't have an expiration date but rather a "Best By" or "Best if Used By" date.

• Storage time shown is for best quality only — after that, the sauce's texture, color or flavor may change, but in most cases, it will still be safe to consume if it has been stored properly.
• If sauce develops an off odor, flavor or appearance, it should be discarded for quality purposes.

Answer 2

It depends. Are you talking tamari, shoyu or western soy sauce? Good tamari will improve with age (which is why I buy it in 5gal quantities even though I use far less than a gal/year). The same is probably true of shoyu as well, but westeren soy sauce has additional ingredients which may affect shelf life.

Answer 3

Doesn't seem like it to me. I have a bottle in my cupboard from 1997 and it's still fine on the (very) rare occasion when I actually put any on my rice.