Honey Vinegar substitute

Best substitute

White Wine Vinegar Plus Honey

For every 1 tbsp honey vinegar: 1 tbsp white wine vinegar + ½ tsp honey

Best for vinaigrettes

Close match

The obvious and correct answer, and it lands very close. The honey supplies exactly the floral sweetness and rounded mouthfeel that honey vinegar has, and the white wine vinegar supplies the acidity. The only real difference is a faint grape note from the vinegar that honey vinegar does not have.

Other honey vinegar substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Champagne Vinegar Plus Honey
Close match
For every 1 tbsp honey vinegar: 1 tbsp champagne vinegar + ½ tsp honey
The best version of this substitution.
What changes
Champagne vinegar is naturally milder and more delicate than white wine vinegar, which matches honey vinegar's low, soft acidity almost exactly. A delicate salad or a fish dish finished with this is essentially indistinguishable from the real thing.
Best for
delicate leaf salads, fish and shellfish, beurre blanc style sauces, cucumber and herb dishes
Worth the small extra effort if you already own champagne vinegar. If not, white wine vinegar with a few drops of water added is the practical equivalent.
3Unseasoned Rice Vinegar Plus Honey
Close match
For every 1 tbsp honey vinegar: 1 tbsp rice vinegar + ½ tsp honey
Rice vinegar is the mildest common vinegar, so it matches honey vinegar's gentleness better than most.
What changes
It has a faint grainy sweetness of its own rather than any fruit note, so a dressing made this way tastes softer and a shade more neutral, which is genuinely pleasant and slightly less characterful.
Best for
light dressings, slaws, cold noodle and grain salads, dipping sauces
Buy unseasoned, since seasoned rice vinegar contains added sugar and salt. If you only have seasoned, skip the honey and taste before salting.
4Apple Cider Vinegar Plus Honey
Different taste
For every 1 tbsp honey vinegar: 2 ½ tsp cider vinegar + ½ tsp water + ½ tsp honey
Almost everyone has both ingredients, and the combination is genuinely good.
What changes
Cider vinegar is sharper and unmistakably apple-scented, so a roast chicken glazed with this tastes fruitier and more homely, less floral and refined. The small amount of water brings the acidity down closer to honey vinegar's mildness.
Best for
roast chicken and pork glazes, roasted root vegetables, hearty salads, marinades, braised greens
The apple note is a feature in autumn and winter cooking and a liability in a delicate spring salad. Choose accordingly.
5White Wine Vinegar On Its Own
Different taste
Use the same amount
Fine if you have no honey or want a savoury result.
What changes
It provides the acidity but none of the sweetness or floral aroma, so a vinaigrette comes out sharper and leaner, and a glaze will not have that faint honeyed gloss. In a dressing with mustard, shallots and good oil this reads as perfectly normal.
Best for
vinaigrettes, pan sauces, quick pickles for the fridge, deglazing
If the dish tastes too sharp, a pinch of sugar, a little maple syrup or a spoonful of jam all fill the same gap honey would have.
6Sherry Vinegar Plus Honey, When You Want Depth
Different taste
For every 1 tbsp honey vinegar: 2 tsp sherry vinegar + 1 tsp water + ½ tsp honey
Not a match for honey vinegar's delicacy, and included honestly because it is a good dish rather than a good imitation.
What changes
Sherry vinegar is nutty, oxidised and much more assertive, so a duck or mushroom dish made with it tastes deeper and more savoury and loses honey vinegar's light floral lift entirely.
Best for
duck and game, mushrooms, warm lentil salads, aged cheeses
Genuinely too strong for anything delicate. Do not use it in a light salad dressing expecting a subtle result.

What is Honey Vinegar?

Honey Vinegar is Honey vinegar is a soft, floral vinegar made by fermenting honey into mead and then letting the mead turn to vinegar, sold as mead vinegar or vinaigre de miel and noticeably gentler than any wine vinegar.

Cooking tips

Honey vinegar's job is very mild acidity plus floral sweetness and a little body. It is a finishing vinegar, not a workhorse, and it is meaningfully weaker than wine vinegars, so recipes tend to use more of it than they would of red wine vinegar.
Because it is so mild, it is the vinegar to reach for when the acid is going to be tasted raw and undisguised, in a delicate leaf salad, over fresh cheese, or in a dressing with very little oil. Any substitute should be a mild vinegar for the same reason.
Keep it off high heat. Honey's aroma is volatile and its sugars scorch, so hard boiling turns a honey vinegar reduction bitter. Add it at the end of a pan sauce, off the heat or over the lowest flame.
It works particularly well against goat cheese, beetroot, carrots and duck, all things with either an earthy or a fatty character that a floral sweet-sour acid flatters. If you are substituting in one of those dishes, keeping the honey in your substitute matters more than matching the exact vinegar.
Do not use honey vinegar or any homemade or specialty vinegar in place of the vinegar named in a canning, pickling or fermenting recipe. Those recipes depend on a known 5 percent acidity, and mild artisan vinegars are often below it, which in a sealed jar is a botulism risk. Use the vinegar the tested recipe specifies and see the National Center for Home Food Preservation for guidance.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave honey vinegar out?

If it is the only acid in a dressing or sauce, no, because the dish will taste flat and oily. Substitute any mild vinegar plus a little honey. If it appears alongside lemon juice or wine in the same recipe, you can leave it out and the dish will be slightly less complex but perfectly good.

Is honey vinegar the same as mead vinegar?

Yes. Mead is fermented honey, and mead vinegar is what you get when that mead is fermented a second time into vinegar. Bottles labelled mead vinegar, honey vinegar, honey wine vinegar or vinaigre de miel are all the same product, and everything on this page applies to all of them.

Is honey vinegar sweet?

Only faintly. The fermentation converts most of the honey's sugar, so what remains is a floral aroma and a soft roundness rather than real sweetness. It tastes much less sweet than balsamic and only slightly sweeter than white wine vinegar, which is why the substitute uses just half a teaspoon of honey per tablespoon.

Can I make honey vinegar at home?

Properly, no, not quickly: it requires fermenting honey water to mead first and then to vinegar, which takes months. What you can do in ten seconds is stir honey into a mild vinegar, which reproduces the flavour well enough for any cooking purpose. Treat that mixture as a flavouring and keep it in the fridge.

Is it worth buying a bottle?

It is a genuine pleasure in salads and with cheese, and it is also one of the easiest specialty vinegars to fake convincingly. If you already own white wine or champagne vinegar and honey, you have most of it. Buy it because you enjoy good vinegar, not because a recipe cannot be made without it.

Related substitutes

More alcohol & vinegars substitutes

Honey Vinegar substitute

Other honey vinegar substitutes

2Champagne Vinegar Plus Honey

3Unseasoned Rice Vinegar Plus Honey

4Apple Cider Vinegar Plus Honey

5White Wine Vinegar On Its Own

6Sherry Vinegar Plus Honey, When You Want Depth