Fish fumet substitutes

For all practical purposes this is fumet. The only real distinction is that fumet is made with wine and aromatics from the start and simmered briefly, so adding a spoonful of dry white wine to bought fish stock closes the gap almost exactly. Bottled versions are usually saltier and thinner in body than homemade fumet, which matters most if you plan to reduce the liquid hard for a sauce.

Best for

poaching fish, white wine pan sauces, bouillabaisse and cioppino, risotto, chowder

Taste it first. If it is already salted, do not reduce it by more than about half or the sauce will be too salty to serve.

The most reliable supermarket option. It gives you genuine marine flavour, but it is a different note: sharply briny and mineral where fumet is soft, delicate and faintly sweet. It is also very salty, which is the real danger. A sauce reduced from clam juice concentrates that salt fast, so a beurre blanc built on it can become unservable. Excellent in chowder, where cream and potato absorb it.

Best for

chowder, cioppino, seafood pasta, steaming mussels, seafood risotto

Add no salt at all to a dish made with clam juice until it is finished. Clams are molluscs, so this is not shellfish-allergy safe.

Professional kitchens do this more often than menus admit, and it is a genuinely good answer. Chicken stock brings the body and gelatin that make a sauce gloss, which most fish substitutes lack, and diluting it keeps it from overpowering delicate fish. The result tastes rounder and clearly less marine, and it never tastes wrong, only different. Use a pale stock, not a dark roasted one, which would swamp a piece of sole.

Best for

pan sauces for fish, poaching, risotto, seafood stews, chowder

Use unsalted or low-sodium stock so you can reduce it for a sauce. A strip of lemon peel or a piece of nori added while it warms nudges it toward the sea.

If you have shrimp shells or a shellfish stock, this delivers plenty of marine flavour and real body. The difference is direction: it is sweeter, richer and pinker than fumet, and it announces itself. That is a bonus in bisque, chowder and cioppino, where the sweetness suits the dish, and a distraction under a delicate poached sole or a beurre blanc, where the point is a clean, almost neutral backdrop.

Best for

bisque, cioppino, seafood risotto, chowder, paella

Not suitable for a shellfish allergy. Do not simmer shellfish shells beyond about 30 to 40 minutes or the stock turns bitter.

Court bouillon is this same vegetable-and-wine poaching liquid, and it gets used in the same dishes as fumet, so the two are easy to confuse. The difference that matters is that neither contains fish, and therefore neither has any gelatin. For poaching, that is fine and genuinely viable: the fish flavours the liquid as it cooks and a fillet poached this way tastes clean and good. For a reduction sauce it is the honest limit, because there is nothing in the liquid to concentrate and reducing it just gives you salty wine.

Best for

poaching fillets, steaming, quick fish stews, emergency substitution

Do not reduce this looking for flavour. Poach the fish, lift it out, then finish the small amount of liquid with cold butter or a spoonful of cream to supply the body fumet would have given.

A useful vegetarian and vegan route with a clean, mineral, unmistakably oceanic taste and a surprising amount of savoury depth from the kelp's natural glutamates. It is also very quick. What it does not have is fat, gelatin or richness, so it makes an excellent light broth and a poor base for a classic reduction sauce, which will taste lean and stay watery no matter how long you reduce it.

Best for

light fish broths, steamed fish, noodle soups, vegan seafood-style dishes

Steep a 4 inch piece of kombu in a quart of water below a simmer for 20 minutes and remove it before it boils, or the broth turns slippery and bitter.