Aleppo pepper paste substitutes

The closest thing on any shelf, and for most purposes an outright equivalent rather than a compromise. Both are made the same way - ripe red peppers salted and reduced down to a dense paste, traditionally by drying in the sun - so you get the same thick body, the same deep red, the same salted fruitiness. What changes: Turkish sweet paste is often a touch sweeter and less smoky, and Aleppo paste sometimes has a faint fermented tang the Turkish version lacks. In muhammara or on a kebab the difference is small. Buy the tatli (sweet) jar; the aci (hot) version is considerably hotter and will make a mild dish spicy.

Best for

muhammara, kebab and kofta mixes, marinades for lamb and chicken, stews and pilafs, spreading on flatbread with cheese

Turkish paste is heavily salted as a preservative, so cut the salt elsewhere in the recipe until you have tasted. Once opened, keep the jar in the fridge with a thin film of olive oil poured over the surface, which stops mold forming on top.

The best fix from an ordinary kitchen, and the one worth memorizing. Tomato paste supplies the thick body, the deep red color and the concentrated sweetness that make the real paste behave the way it does; Aleppo flakes supply the actual pepper flavor and the gentle heat; the sugar and salt approximate the seasoning already built into a jar of the real thing. What changes: tomato brings its own bright, slightly acidic edge and a savory glutamate depth, so a muhammara made this way tastes a little more tomatoey and less purely pepper-fruity than it should. Nobody unfamiliar with the original would spot a problem.

Best for

muhammara, kofta and kebab mixtures, stews, soups and rice dishes, marinades

Warm the mixture in a little oil in a pan for thirty seconds before adding it to the dish. Raw tomato paste tastes tinny and the Aleppo flakes need fat and heat to release their color and aroma, and half a minute in a pan fixes both. Regular crushed red pepper flakes can stand in for Aleppo flakes but are much hotter and less fruity, so use about a third as much.

The route to take if you want pure pepper flavor with no tomato in it. Blend the drained peppers smooth and cook the puree in a dry pan, stirring, until it darkens and thickens to a spreadable paste - this takes five to ten minutes and is the step people skip. What changes: jarred peppers are fire-roasted, so the result is sweeter and distinctly smokier than Aleppo paste, and much less salty. If you skip the reduction you get a watery puree that will loosen a muhammara into a dip that slides off the bread. Add the salt yourself, generously.

Best for

muhammara, dips and spreads, when you want no tomato flavor in the dish, cooking for someone avoiding added preservatives

Pat the peppers dry before blending and reduce further than looks necessary, since the paste firms up less than you expect on cooling. Peppers packed in vinegar rather than brine will make the result noticeably sour, so rinse those first or choose a plain jar.

The Balkan red pepper relish, already made from roasted red peppers and often containing eggplant and a fair amount of oil. It is genuinely useful in muhammara because it is in the same flavor family - sweet, roasted, red. What changes: ajvar is looser and oilier than a pepper paste, sweeter, milder, and usually carries vinegar, which adds a sourness Aleppo paste does not have. Dishes come out brighter and less deeply savory. It works far better in cold preparations like dips and spreads than in a kebab mix, where the extra moisture is a problem.

Best for

muhammara and other dips, spreading on bread, sauces and dressings

Buy the mild version unless you want heat. Because ajvar contains oil and vinegar already, cut back on both in your recipe and taste before adding lemon or pomegranate molasses.

Available everywhere, and the temptation is to treat it as an equivalent because both are red pepper pastes. They are not equivalent. Harissa is built on hot chiles and carries caraway, coriander, cumin and a lot of garlic, so it is several times hotter than Aleppo paste and aromatically pulls the dish to North Africa. What changes: a muhammara made with harissa at 1:1 will be sharply spicy and taste of caraway rather than sweet roasted pepper - recognizably a different dip. At a third of the quantity, topped up with tomato paste for body, it becomes a reasonable emergency swap.

Best for

emergency substitutions in cooked dishes, stews and braises where the spicing can shift, people who want the dish hotter anyway

Rose harissa is milder and more floral and is the better choice of the two. Taste before you commit any of it to the dish, since harissa heat varies enormously between brands.

Worth spelling out because this is the mistake the search results encourage. Aleppo flakes and Aleppo pepper paste are made from the same pepper and are not interchangeable by volume. The paste is wet, mild, salty and sweet, and in something like muhammara it makes up a substantial share of the mixture, so a tablespoon of it is contributing bulk and moisture as well as flavor. A tablespoon of dry flakes in its place will be fiercely concentrated and will leave the dish dry and grainy. Flakes are the right flavor source, but they need tomato paste, reduced roasted peppers or even a little tomato passata alongside them to do the paste's structural job.

Best for

flavor and heat only, when combined with something for body, finishing and seasoning rather than replacing paste in a recipe

If flakes are all you have, the tomato paste formula higher up this page is the version to use. Bloom them in warm oil first - Aleppo flakes are relatively coarse and oily and they give up much more color and aroma to fat than to water.