Kluwak substitutes

A jarred or vacuum-packed Indonesian spice paste that already contains fermented kluwak.

Best for

rawon, ayam buah keluak, weeknight cooking

This is the only substitute that contains the real ingredient, so it is the recommendation rather than a compromise. What changes is control rather than flavour: pastes are usually saltier and sweeter than a home-pounded bumbu and the aromatics are already fixed, so taste before salting and consider adding fresh lemongrass, lime leaf and galangal to freshen it up. Available in Indonesian groceries and online, and it keeps for months.

The best build-it-yourself approximation, aimed at colour, bitterness and fermented depth together.

Best for

rawon-style beef soup, dark braises, when kluwak is simply unavailable

This is the closest a Western kitchen gets, and it does produce a genuinely dark, savoury, faintly bitter broth. Say what changes though: the cocoa reads as cocoa, so the soup tastes like a mushroomy, chocolate-edged beef stew rather than rawon, and the specific smoky-fermented perfume of kluwak is absent entirely. Use unsweetened cocoa, never drinking chocolate, add the miso off the boil, and taste for salt at the end.

A colour-and-umami route with no bitterness, useful if you dislike the cocoa version.

Best for

beef soups, braises, vegetarian dark broths

Soak a handful of dried shiitake in a small amount of very hot water for thirty minutes and use the liquid, not just the mushrooms. You get deep savoury flavour and a dark broth, but browner and glossier than kluwak's matte black, and it is missing the bitter chocolate note completely, so the soup tastes rich and sweetish rather than earthy and slightly bitter. Good stew, not rawon.

Slowly aged garlic that has turned soft, black and molasses-like, closest to kluwak on the aged-and-dark axis.

Best for

braises, marinades, sauces where the colour matters less

The aroma family is right, since both are the product of long transformation and both smell of dried fruit and soy. Black garlic is much sweeter and distinctly balsamic and fruity, so a broth made with it tastes sweet-sour rather than bitter-earthy, and it will not turn a pot of soup properly black. Best used alongside the miso and cocoa blend rather than on its own.

A presentation-first option for when the black colour is what you are chasing.

Best for

when appearance matters most, seafood versions

Nothing else in a normal kitchen turns a broth as convincingly black. The problem is that squid ink brings a distinct marine, briny note that has no business in a beef rawon, so use it only in a seafood dish or accept the mismatch. It also contributes nothing bitter or chocolatey, which is why it needs the dark miso alongside it.

The recommendation nobody wants and the most honest one on this page.

Best for

rawon, ayam buah keluak

The black colour and the bitter earthiness are not garnishes in these dishes, they are the identity. A rawon without kluwak is a beef soup with lemongrass and lime leaf, which is close to soto, and soto is a wonderful dish you can make properly with ingredients you have. Making a good soto is a better evening than making a disappointing rawon, and the nuts keep almost indefinitely once you do find them, so buy a bag next time.