Brown Sauce substitute

Best substitute

Homemade brown sauce from ketchup

makes about ⅓ cup, use 1:1

Best for bacon sandwiches and bacon butties

Close match

A cold five-ingredient mix that needs no cooking at all.

Other brown sauce substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2A1 Steak Sauce or another steak sauce
Close match
Use the same amount
The nearest American shelf equivalent, made from tomato, raisin, tamarind and vinegar.
What changes
Best for
bacon sandwiches, full English breakfast, burgers and grilled meat, meat pies
A very good match, because it shares almost the same flavour architecture. A1 is sharper, more peppery and less sweet than HP, so a bacon sandwich made with it tastes more aggressively vinegary and slightly thinner in the fruit department. A quarter teaspoon of brown sugar per tablespoon closes the gap almost exactly. It is also a touch thinner, so it soaks into bread faster.
3Worcestershire sauce plus ketchup
Taste and texture differ
1 tbsp Worcestershire + 3 tbsp ketchup
The two-bottle version, using ingredients most kitchens already have.
What changes
Best for
bacon sandwiches, sausages, cooking into stews, mince and shepherd's pie
Very serviceable and takes ten seconds. It is thinner and considerably saltier than brown sauce, with a distinct anchovy savouriness from the Worcestershire and much less dark fruit, so it reads as a sharper, more liquid condiment that soaks into bread rather than sitting on it. Excellent as a cooking ingredient, slightly less satisfying as a table sauce. Add a pinch of brown sugar to round it.
4Tamarind chutney or date and tamarind chutney
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount thinned with 1 tsp vinegar per tbsp
The Indian condiment, built from dates, tamarind, vinegar and spice.
What changes
Best for
bacon rolls, sausages, samosas and fried food, cheese sandwiches
Structurally very close, since dates and tamarind are exactly what gives real brown sauce its dark sour-sweet fruit, and it tastes genuinely good on a bacon roll. It is sweeter, thicker and more obviously spiced, with cumin and often chilli notes that brown sauce does not have, so the sandwich tastes warmer and a little exotic. Thin it and add a splash of vinegar so it is pourable and sour enough.
5Barbecue sauce, thinned and sharpened
Taste and texture differ
3 tbsp BBQ sauce + 1 tbsp malt vinegar
Available anywhere, and workable once you correct the sugar and the acid.
What changes
Best for
sausages and bacon, burgers, chips
The two things that separate it from brown sauce are smoke and sugar. Most barbecue sauce is smoky, which brown sauce is not at all, and considerably sweeter and thicker, so a full English made with it tastes American rather than British. The vinegar is not optional here or you are just putting sweet sauce on your bacon. Pick the least smoky bottle you own, and a Kansas City style will be much too sweet.
6Plain ketchup
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
The least-good option, and where a lot of people genuinely end up.
What changes
Best for
a bacon sandwich when the cupboard is bare
Being honest: ketchup is sweet and tomato-forward with none of brown sauce's malt-vinegar sourness, dark fruit or spice, so a bacon sandwich made with it is pleasant and noticeably flat. It is also thicker and glossier, so it sits on the bread in a lump rather than spreading thin. Stirring a teaspoon of vinegar and a good pinch of brown sugar into each tablespoon takes ten seconds and gets you most of the way there, so do at least that.

What is Brown Sauce?

Brown Sauce is a dark, thin, tangy British table condiment made from tomato, dates or molasses, tamarind, malt vinegar and spices, best known by the brand name HP Sauce, and its job on a plate is sharp fruity acidity rather than the plain sweetness of ketchup.

Cooking tips

The two flavours doing the real work in brown sauce are malt vinegar and tamarind. If you are building a substitute out of ketchup, add those two before you reach for anything else, because the sourness and the dark dried-fruit note are the entire character of the sauce.
Brown sauce is a cold table condiment but it is excellent as a cooking ingredient. A tablespoon in a beef stew, a shepherd's pie, a gravy or a marinade adds acid and depth in a way that is hard to identify on the plate, and every substitute on this list works the same way.
Taste it on the actual food rather than off the spoon. Brown sauce is formulated to be eaten against fatty bacon, sausage and fried bread, and on its own any version of it tastes too sour and too sharp. A substitute that seems overwhelming neat may be exactly right on a sandwich.
Brown sauce also means something completely different in classical cooking: sauce espagnole, one of the mother sauces, a roux-thickened brown stock sauce, and its concentrated form demi-glace. If your recipe asks for brown sauce as a hot component to be spooned over meat, you want a reduced beef stock, a dark roux-based gravy or a shop-bought demi-glace, not a bottle of HP.
Commercial brown sauce keeps for months in the fridge because of its high vinegar and sugar content. Homemade versions built from ketchup keep about three weeks refrigerated and should not be shelf-stored, because you have no idea what the finished acidity is.

Frequently asked questions

Is HP Sauce the same as brown sauce?

HP is a brand, and it is the best-known brown sauce by a wide margin, so in Britain and Ireland the two names are used interchangeably. Brown sauce is the category, and other brands such as Daddies and various supermarket own-labels sit alongside it, all tomato, tamarind, molasses and malt vinegar with slightly different sugar and spice balances. Any recipe asking for HP will be perfectly happy with any brown sauce.

Is brown sauce the same as A1 Steak Sauce?

They are close relatives rather than the same thing, and you can swap them one for one. Both are built on tomato, tamarind, vinegar and dried fruit. A1 is sharper, more peppery and less sweet, so it makes a more aggressive sandwich; HP is fruitier and rounder. A pinch of brown sugar in A1, or a splash of vinegar in HP, moves either one toward the other.

Can I use ketchup instead of brown sauce?

You can, but do not use it neat if you can avoid it. Ketchup is sweeter, more tomato-forward and much less sour, so it makes a bacon sandwich taste flat and one-dimensional. Stir a teaspoon of malt or cider vinegar and a good pinch of dark brown sugar into each tablespoon of ketchup, plus a dash of Worcestershire if you have it, and you have something much closer for almost no effort.

Can I just leave brown sauce out?

On a plate, absolutely. It is a table condiment and nothing in a full English, a bacon sandwich or a sausage roll depends on it, though the meal will taste richer and less balanced without something acidic alongside. Inside a recipe it matters more: if a stew, marinade or gravy calls for brown sauce and you skip it, replace the acid with a splash of vinegar and the depth with a teaspoon of Worcestershire, or the dish will taste noticeably flatter.

What can I use instead of brown sauce on chips?

Ketchup with a splash of malt vinegar stirred through is the quickest and closest. Malt vinegar on its own is the traditional British answer and is arguably better with chips than any sauce. A1 or another steak sauce works one for one. Tamarind chutney thinned with a little vinegar is also very good, if less conventional.

Related substitutes

More sauces & condiments substitutes

Brown Sauce substitute

Other brown sauce substitutes

2A1 Steak Sauce or another steak sauce

3Worcestershire sauce plus ketchup

4Tamarind chutney or date and tamarind chutney

5Barbecue sauce, thinned and sharpened

6Plain ketchup