Black Truffle substitute

Substitutes for Black Truffle with ratios

1. 2Truffle Paste or Truffle Puree

   Different texture

   Use 1 teaspoon for every ¼ oz fresh truffle, stirred in off the heat

   A jarred paste of chopped truffle, usually blended with mushroom and olive oil, sold as tartufata or truffle sauce.

   What changes

   Best for

   pasta, risotto, eggs, crostini, cream sauces, mashed potatoes

   The closest thing to real truffle you can keep in a cupboard, because it does actually contain truffle, usually the milder summer variety padded out with mushroom. Read the label: the good jars list truffle high up, the cheap ones are mushroom paste plus flavouring. Expect maybe a third of the aroma of fresh, a much darker and muddier appearance since it never looks like clean shavings, and a slightly oily body that can dull a delicate sauce. Add it at the end with the heat off, because the aroma is volatile and boiling drives it away.

2. 3Black Truffle Oil

   Taste and texture differ

   Use ¼ to ½ teaspoon for every serving, drizzled at the table

   Oil carrying truffle aroma, in most cases from a laboratory-made aroma compound rather than from truffle itself.

   What changes

   Best for

   finishing pasta, fries, popcorn, mashed potatoes, eggs, risotto

   Powerful and easy to overdo, and the reason so many people say they dislike truffle. Real truffle smells complex and shifts as you eat; most truffle oil hits one loud note and holds it, which after a few bites reads as perfumed and slightly chemical. Used with restraint, a quarter teaspoon over a plate of buttered pasta genuinely reads as truffle to most people. Never cook with it, never use it as the fat in a pan, and buy the smallest bottle because it fades within a couple of months of opening.

3. 4Truffle Salt

   Different taste

   Use Season to taste in place of the recipe's salt, about ¼ teaspoon for every serving

   Coarse salt blended with small pieces of dried truffle.

   What changes

   Best for

   eggs, fries, steak, popcorn, roast potatoes, risotto

   The most forgiving of the flavoured truffle products, precisely because salt limits how much you can add before the dish is ruined by saltiness. The aroma is quieter and drier than fresh truffle, with none of the damp, alive quality, but it does not taste synthetic in the way cheap oil does. Sprinkle it at the end rather than cooking with it, and remember to remove the plain salt from the recipe so you do not double up.

4. 5Summer Truffle or Bianchetto Truffle

   Different taste

   1.5 to 2 times the weight of black winter truffle

   Cheaper truffle species, sold fresh or jarred, with the same texture but a much fainter aroma.

   What changes

   Best for

   shaving over pasta, risotto, eggs, carpaccio, butter

   If your recipe wants shavings on the plate and you want them to be actual truffle, this is the way. It looks right, it shaves right, and it is real. It simply smells much less: a summer truffle is mild and nutty where a Perigord truffle is heady and almost aggressive, so use nearly twice as much and still expect a subtler dish. Storing it overnight in a closed container with eggs or with cooked rice transfers a surprising amount of aroma and stretches what you have.

5. 6Dried Porcini plus Roasted Garlic

   Taste and texture differ

   Use ½ oz dried porcini and 1 roasted garlic clove for every ¼ oz truffle

   Rehydrated dried porcini or cepes, chopped fine, with soft roasted garlic mashed in.

   What changes

   Best for

   pasta, risotto, sauces for beef, stuffings, gratins

   A cook's workaround rather than a substitute. Porcini supply the deep forest-floor earthiness and roasted garlic supplies the sweet, slightly sulphurous note that is part of what makes truffle smell the way it does, and together they land closer than either alone. It is still recognisably not truffle to anyone who has eaten it, and it is darker and chunkier on the plate. Worth it in a rich braise or a baked pasta, not worth it in a dish built around clean white shavings.