Feijoa substitutes

Peel and dice a soft ripe pear, ideally Bartlett or Beurre Bosc, and mix with well-drained canned crushed pineapple and lime juice. Use it exactly where the scooped feijoa flesh would have gone.

Best for

feijoa loaf and muffins, crumble and cake, fruit salad, chutney, smoothies

This is the best all-round answer. Pear matches the gritty, slightly granular softness of feijoa flesh almost exactly, and pineapple supplies the tropical tang. What you will miss is the specific perfume, that faintly minty, almost eucalyptus edge that makes feijoa taste like nothing else, so the loaf will read as a nice pear-pineapple loaf rather than a feijoa one. Drain the pineapple properly or the batter will be wet.

Feijoa is in the same family as true guava and shares a lot of its aroma. Use ripe pink or white guava with the hard seeds strained out, frozen guava pulp thawed, or canned guava halves drained and chopped.

Best for

chutney, jam and jelly, baking, sorbet and ice cream, drinks

The closest single fruit on aroma, and in a cooked or blended dish it is very convincing. Guava is sweeter, more strongly perfumed and pinker, so a jam will come out a rosy colour instead of pale green-cream, and you may want to hold back a little sugar. Canned guava in syrup is already sweetened, so reduce the recipe sugar by about a third.

The single most available option, and the one that carries the flavour note most people actually associate with feijoa, which is why the fruit is sold as pineapple guava in the first place.

Best for

feijoa loaf and muffins, chutney, crumble, smoothies, salsa

Sharper, wetter and much more acidic than feijoa, and it has none of the soft grainy body, so a loaf made with pineapple alone can turn out slightly gummy. Drain it hard, chop it fine, and if you have one, mash in half a ripe pear or banana to bring back the softness. Fresh pineapple contains an enzyme that stops gelatine setting, so use canned in a jelly or panna cotta.

A good option if you are cooking in New Zealand or Australia out of feijoa season, since both fruits are cheap and available. Peel the kiwifruit and dice it fine with the pear.

Best for

fruit salad, crumble, smoothies, yoghurt bowls, chutney

The colour and the small dark seeds actually look quite like feijoa flesh, and kiwifruit brings a comparable green tartness. The flavour is more sour and grassy and less perfumed, so add a teaspoon of honey per cup. Fresh kiwifruit also contains an enzyme that breaks down gelatine and turns dairy bitter after a while, so use it in things you eat the same day.

The right choice for a feijoa chutney or a preserve where you need something perfumed that holds up to long cooking. Peel, core and simmer the quince until soft before it joins the recipe, because raw quince is hard and astringent.

Best for

feijoa chutney, jam and paste, poached fruit, relish for cheese

Strongly floral and honey-scented, which is the one quality it shares with feijoa, but it is much firmer, far less juicy and needs a good 20 to 30 minutes of cooking before it softens. It also turns pink as it cooks. Choose it for chutney and paste, not for a quick loaf.

The bare-cupboard version for a loaf or muffins. Grate a soft eating apple such as Braeburn or Royal Gala, squeeze out a little of the liquid, and stir the pineapple juice through it.

Best for

feijoa loaf and muffins, cake, crumble, porridge

Honest assessment: this keeps the cake moist and pleasant but it will not taste of feijoa. Apple is mild and one-note where feijoa is loud and perfumed. If you have any of these on hand, a quarter teaspoon of vanilla or a small splash of elderflower cordial per cup pushes it noticeably closer to the floral character you are missing.