Aged balsamic vinegar (Tradizionale) substitutes

The substitute worth making, and the one restaurant kitchens quietly rely on. Reducing cheap balsamic drives off water, concentrates the grape sugars and softens the raw acid, so the result is thick, dark and sweet-tart - all the qualities that make aged balsamic drape over a strawberry instead of running off it. What it lacks is the aroma and the long finish; a reduction tastes forthright and one-dimensional next to a 12-year bottle, which keeps unfolding. For anything with strong flavours around it, the gap barely registers.

Best for

drizzling on Parmigiano, pecorino and aged cheese, strawberries, figs and vanilla gelato, finishing steak, pork and grilled vegetables, risotto and polenta

Reduce it low and slow in a small stainless pan, and stop while it still looks slightly thin - it thickens as it cools. Adding a teaspoon of honey or brown sugar per cup mimics the sweetness of a longer-aged bottle.

The best bought answer. These are made much like the traditional product but fall outside the DOP rules - often younger, sometimes from grape must plus wine vinegar - and good ones are genuinely thick, sweet and complex, with real barrel character. Expect a shorter finish and slightly more obvious acidity than a 12-year DOP bottle, but the same behaviour on the plate. Read the ingredient list: grape must first, no caramel colour, no thickener, and a price above the everyday shelf but far below the DOP tier.

Best for

any use of aged balsamic where you want to buy rather than make, cheese boards, salads dressed with nothing but oil and vinegar, finishing meat and vegetables

The words to look for are condimento, condimento balsamico or invecchiato, plus a stated ageing period. Bottles labelled only Aceto Balsamico di Modena IGP vary hugely in quality.

Saba is cooked grape must that never became vinegar, so it delivers exactly the sweet, thick, raisiny grape side of aged balsamic and none of the sour side. Adding a little wine vinegar back rebuilds a convincing balance. The result is fruitier and less wood-aged, so a plate of strawberries finished with it tastes juicier and simpler and a little less grown-up. On cheese and roasted vegetables it is excellent.

Best for

cheese and charcuterie boards, fruit and desserts, roasted squash, carrots and onions, duck and pork

Also sold as mosto cotto or, in Middle Eastern shops, as grape molasses. Add the vinegar a few drops at a time and taste, because saba varies in sweetness.

Convenient and the right consistency, and it will look correct on the plate. Most commercial glazes are sweetened well past a real reduction and some are thickened with starch or coloured with caramel, so they taste flatter and more candy-like, and they can leave a slightly gluey feel on the tongue that aged balsamic never has. Good on a caprese; noticeably artificial if you are serving it alone with cheese, where there is nothing to hide behind.

Best for

caprese, bruschetta and tomatoes, roasted vegetables, sandwiches and burgers, situations where speed matters most

The shorter the ingredient list, the better it stands in. If yours tastes cloying, sharpen it with a few drops of red wine vinegar.

A different fruit but the same architecture: dark, thick, sweet-sour syrup used by the drop. It is brighter and more tannic, so a steak or a plate of roasted carrots finished with it tastes zippier and more Middle Eastern, without balsamic's mellow, woody sweetness. Genuinely good in savoury contexts and on feta or labneh; less convincing with Parmigiano or strawberries, where the pomegranate tang sticks out.

Best for

grilled and roasted meat, especially lamb, roasted vegetables, feta, halloumi and labneh, grain salads

Taste yours first - some brands are sharply sour and need the full amount of honey, others are already syrupy-sweet.

The least-bad option when you have nothing and no time, and worth being blunt about: it is thin, considerably more acidic and much less sweet, so it will run off the food into a puddle and taste sour where the recipe wanted a sweet, resinous drop. Use far less than the recipe says, because the acid is not buffered by concentrated sugar. In a dressing, where oil and salt do a lot of work, it is fine. Alone on a piece of Parmigiano, it is a poor imitation.

Best for

vinaigrettes and marinades, deglazing a pan, salads, anything where the balsamic is mixed rather than drizzled

Two minutes in a pan turns this option into the first option on this list, which is a much better page-one answer. Reduce it if you possibly can.