Kasha substitutes

Not really a substitute so much as the same ingredient one step earlier. Untoasted groats are pale green-tan and taste mild, grassy and faintly sweet, and cooked as they are they give a softer, blander, slightly mushier result than kasha. Toast them in a dry skillet over medium heat for four to five minutes, shaking often, until they darken to reddish brown and smell distinctly nutty, and you have kasha. If you skip the toasting, expect a dish that reads as pleasant porridge rather than the assertive, earthy grain the recipe intended.

Best for

kasha varnishkes, stuffed cabbage and stuffed peppers, knish and blintz fillings, buckwheat pilaf and grechka side dishes

Health food shops usually sell the raw green groats and Eastern European shops usually sell them already toasted. Either is fine, but check which you have, because it changes the flavour of the finished dish substantially.

The best substitute if you do not have buckwheat at all. Coarse bulgur cooks in about the same time with about the same liquid and gives a similar loose, separate, chewy grain, so the mechanics of the dish are unchanged. The flavour is the difference: bulgur tastes wheaty, mildly sweet and clean where kasha is earthy and a little bitter, so kasha varnishkes made with it comes out pleasant but noticeably milder and less savoury. Brown the dry bulgur in butter or schmaltz first and use more fried onion than the recipe says, and it gets much closer.

Best for

kasha varnishkes, grain pilafs, stuffed vegetables, salads and cold grain dishes

Fine bulgur, grade 1, is wrong here. It hydrates almost instantly into a soft couscous-like mass and will not give you distinct grains.

A good structural choice for anything that gets baked or stuffed, because these grains hold their shape indefinitely and never turn to mush. They are chewier and sweeter than kasha, with a pleasant nutty flavour that is milder and less earthy, and the finished dish reads more like a grain salad or a wheat pilaf in character. The main practical difference is time: they need 30 to 45 minutes in plenty of salted water rather than the 10 to 12 minutes kasha wants, so cook them separately and combine at the end rather than substituting inside a timed recipe.

Best for

stuffed cabbage and stuffed peppers, baked grain casseroles, grain salads, hearty soups

Pearled farro cooks in about 20 minutes and whole farro closer to 40. Check which you bought before you plan the timing.

The supermarket fallback and the one that needs the most help. Rice gives you the right bulk, stuffs cabbage and peppers happily and takes on the flavours around it, but it is a blank, so a dish that relied on kasha's earthiness comes out noticeably plain and one-dimensional. The fix is flavour from elsewhere: a generous quantity of deeply browned onion, some sauteed or dried mushrooms, plenty of black pepper, and a teaspoon of soy sauce or a few dried mushrooms in the cooking water for savoury depth. Done that way it is a good dish, just not a buckwheat one.

Best for

stuffed cabbage and stuffed peppers, knish fillings, cabbage and grain bakes, when nothing else is in the cupboard

Brown rice takes 40 to 45 minutes and short-grain white rice about 18, so neither drops into a kasha timing directly. Cook it separately and combine.

The closest gluten-free substitute besides buckwheat itself and reasonably convincing in texture, since both are small grains that stay separate and slightly poppy. The flavour goes a different direction: quinoa tastes faintly bitter and herbal-grassy rather than toasted and earthy, and it cooks wetter and softer, so a pilaf comes out looser and a stuffing slightly claggier. Rinse it well, toast it dry in the pan first for real flavour improvement, and fluff it uncovered for a few minutes to dry it out before combining.

Best for

gluten-free versions of any kasha dish, grain salads, quick weeknight pilafs, stuffed vegetables

Toasting quinoa in the dry pan before adding liquid makes a genuine difference here, since it is the toasted note you are trying to imitate.

Two useful options that behave quite differently. Millet is the closest to kasha's crumbly, fluffy texture and cooks in a similar time, but it tastes mild and faintly corny, so the dish needs the onion-and-mushroom treatment to have any depth. Barley goes the other way: it is chewier, starchier and releases enough starch to thicken whatever it is in, which is excellent in soups and stuffed cabbage and gluey in a dish like varnishkes where you want dry separate grains alongside pasta. Barley also takes 30 to 40 minutes and contains gluten.

Best for

millet in pilafs and porridge, barley in soups and stuffed cabbage, hearty braises, grain side dishes

Barley is not gluten-free, so it is not a substitute for anyone eating buckwheat for that reason. Millet is.