Escabeche substitutes

The standard can of sliced or whole pickled jalapenos, usually packed with a few carrot coins and onion already. Drain and use as the recipe directs.

Best for

tacos, tortas, rice plates, nachos, sandwiches, eggs

Essentially escabeche with the ratios shifted, since most cans are pickled in the same vinegar, oil and oregano brine. The difference is proportion: a jar of escabeche is mostly carrot and onion with a few chiles, while the can is mostly chile, so your plate gains a lot more heat and loses the sweetness that cooked carrot contributes. If you have a raw carrot, slice a few coins and let them sit in the can's brine for twenty minutes and you are almost exactly there.

Italian pickled vegetable mix of cauliflower, carrot, celery and pepper, drained of its oil and chopped to bite size if the pieces are large.

Best for

tortas, sandwiches, rice plates, antipasto, tacos, grilled meats

A genuine cousin rather than a stretch, since giardiniera is also vegetables in vinegar and oil and is used for exactly the same purpose, cutting through fat and rich bread. The flavour direction differs: Italian oregano, celery seed and often a lot more oil, against escabeche's Mexican oregano, cumin, bay and garlic. On a torta almost nobody notices. In a specifically Mexican dish, the celery is the tell. Drain the oil off if the jar is a very oily one.

Soften the carrot, onion, jalapeno and garlic in the oil for three minutes, add everything else, simmer three minutes more, then cool and refrigerate in a jar.

Best for

tacos, tortas, rice plates, grilled meats, beans, eggs

The real thing, done in half an hour, and it is much better than anything in a can. It is edible warm, good within a few hours and excellent the next day. Because this is a refrigerator pickle rather than a canned one, it tastes brighter and fresher than a shelf-stable jar, and the jalapenos will get noticeably hotter over the first week as their heat migrates into the brine. Keep the vegetables just barely cooked so they stay crunchy.

Thin red onion covered with equal parts vinegar and hot water plus a teaspoon each of salt and sugar for thirty minutes, or a bowl of Salvadoran cabbage curtido.

Best for

tacos, tortas, grilled meats, rice bowls, carnitas, fish tacos

On a taco these do the same essential work, which is landing a sharp, salty, crunchy counterweight on top of something fatty. Pickled onion is softer and silkier than carrot batons and brings its own allium sweetness; curtido is cabbage-forward and oregano-scented rather than chile-forward. Neither gives you heat, so if the escabeche was your source of chile, add a sliced fresh or pickled jalapeno alongside.

Mild pickled peppers from a jar, stemmed and sliced into rings.

Best for

tortas, sandwiches, rice plates, salads, eggs, pizza

Tangy, salty and only mildly hot, which puts them in roughly the right neighbourhood, and they are in most supermarkets. They are considerably softer than escabeche vegetables, closer to slippery than crunchy, and a little sweeter, so a torta made with them loses the firm bite that carrot and onion give. There is no cumin, oregano or bay in the brine, so the flavour reads generically pickled rather than Mexican.

Chop dill pickles, drain them well, and toss with a little brine from a jar of pickled chiles or a pinch of chilli flakes and a pinch of dried oregano.

Best for

tortas, sandwiches, rice plates, tacos in an emergency

The least-bad option from a standard American refrigerator, and it does the acid and crunch job competently. Be honest about the mismatch, though: dill and garlic in a pickle brine are unmistakably not the aroma of a Mexican escabeche, so a taco made with them tastes like a sandwich. The oregano and chilli flakes help more than you would expect. Use three quarters as much as the recipe suggests.

Fry the fish or chicken, then while it is still hot pour over a mixture of vinegar and oil with sliced onion, bay leaves, garlic and peppercorns, and rest at least two hours or overnight.

Best for

fried fish, chicken, Spanish escabeche, Filipino escabeche, make-ahead dishes

If your recipe means escabeche the dish rather than escabeche the jar of pickles, there is no substitute for the method, because the whole point is that the acid soaks into the hot fried protein as it cools. What you can vary is the vinegar and the aromatics: white, cider and sherry vinegar all work, and Filipino versions add sugar and ginger while Spanish ones lean on smoked paprika. Skipping the rest entirely gives you fried fish with a dressing, which is not the same dish.