Kassler substitutes

Cured and smoked pork loin sold ready to reheat, the same product under a different name.

Best for

Kassler mit Sauerkraut, pea and lentil soup, one-pot cabbage and potato dishes, pan-warmed chops with mustard, Kasseler in the oven with root vegetables

Prep

Warm through gently rather than searing hard; it is already cooked and dries out fast.

This is not really a substitute, it is the same thing. American, British, Canadian and Australian butchers and supermarkets sell brine-cured, lightly smoked pork loin as smoked pork chops or smoked pork loin, and Polish and Czech delis sell it as smoked pork loin too. Look for meat that is uniformly pink rather than pale grey-beige when raw, and for a label saying cured or smoked rather than natural or fresh. Once you know this, Kassler stops being an exotic ingredient and becomes a routine shop.

Cured pork leg cut into slabs, sold raw or ready cooked depending on the shop.

Best for

sauerkraut pots, pea, bean and lentil soup, cabbage dishes, with mashed potato and mustard, quick weeknight versions of German one-pots

Prep

If using raw gammon, simmer it in the sauerkraut or soup for 30 to 40 minutes; if precooked, add it in the last 15.

The everywhere-available answer. It is cured, so you keep the pink colour, the springy bite and the ham-like savouriness that makes the dish taste right. What changes is that leg is leaner and finer-grained than loin, the brine is usually sweeter, and most ham steaks are only lightly smoked or not smoked at all, so the dish comes out rounder and sweeter and less woody. Add a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika to the pot per 500 g of meat and it closes most of the gap. Unsmoked gammon is worth seeking out if you want to control the smoke yourself.

Cured and smoked lower leg, full of bone, skin and connective tissue.

Best for

sauerkraut simmered for an hour or more, split pea and lentil soup, bean pots, braised cabbage, stock and broth

Prep

Simmer 90 minutes to two hours, then strip the meat and return it to the pot.

For anything that simmers, this is arguably better than Kassler, because the bone and collagen give the pot a body and glossiness that a lean loin cannot. It delivers exactly the same salt and smoke. The catch is service: a hock yields much less sliceable meat, and what it does yield comes off in shreds rather than in neat pink slices, so a recipe that means to plate a chop next to potatoes will not work. It also needs 90 minutes to two hours, where Kassler needs 20. Pull the meat off the bone, discard the skin, and stir the shreds back in.

Cured, lightly smoked pork loin sliced thin, the same cut and cure as Kassler in a different format.

Best for

quick sauerkraut pans, soups where the meat is diced, potato and cabbage fry-ups, sandwich versions of the dish

Prep

Cut into strips or cubes and add in the last five minutes of cooking.

Same cut, same idea, different thickness. It is cured loin, so the flavour is genuinely in the right family, and it is cheap and everywhere. Because it is sliced thin and trimmed very lean, it cannot stand in for a chop on a plate, and it overcooks in a couple of minutes, turning tight and rubbery. It is also usually milder and sweeter than German Kassler. Dice it, add it late, and use the pan fat.

Uncured pork, seasoned to imitate some of what the cure was doing.

Best for

when nothing cured is available, sauerkraut and cabbage dishes, roast pork with potatoes, cooks avoiding nitrites

Prep

Dry-salt overnight, sear, then add late so it does not overcook.

This is the least-bad option rather than a good one, and it is worth saying plainly why. Curing does three things fresh pork cannot fake: it sets the colour pink, it makes the protein firm and springy so the meat stays juicy through a long simmer, and it builds a deep savoury ham flavour. Fresh loin will be grey-white, will taste like roast pork, and will go dry and stringy if you simmer it as long as you would simmer Kassler. To get as close as possible, salt the chops with a teaspoon of salt per 500 g and leave them uncovered in the fridge overnight, brown them properly for colour and flavour, then add them to the pot for only the last 20 minutes. Stir smoked paprika into the cooking liquid, or add a small piece of smoked bacon to the pot to lend real smoke. Do not attempt to improvise a nitrite cure at home from a half-remembered ratio; curing salts are dosed by weight for safety reasons, so if you want to cure your own, follow a tested recipe exactly.

Cured and smoked poultry, widely sold and often the only smoked meat in a supermarket that is not pork.

Best for

sauerkraut pots, pea and bean soups, greens and cabbage, cooks who do not eat pork

Prep

Simmer 45 to 60 minutes, strip the meat from the bone, return it to the pot.

For anyone avoiding pork, this is the practical choice, and in a long-simmered sauerkraut or pea soup it performs surprisingly well because it is genuinely cured and genuinely smoked, so the salt and smoke are real rather than imitated. It is leaner and its flavour is lighter and slightly sweeter, and it lacks the pork fat that normally rounds out these dishes, so the pot can taste a little thin. Add a spoonful of butter or a drizzle of oil at the end. As with a hock, the meat shreds rather than slices, so it suits pots more than plates.