Kulet substitutes

The genuine answer, and it is one pan and about half an hour. Chop the onion very fine, sweat it dry in a covered pan until it collapses to a jam, then add the fat, then the berbere, then the tomato and aromatics.

Best for

tsebhi derho, tsebhi birsen and zigni, any recipe that assumes you already have kulet, batch cooking and freezing

A thirty-minute version tastes brighter and thinner than a kulet that has had an hour on low heat, where the onion goes properly sweet and the whole base turns dark and glossy. If you have the time, give the onion stage twice as long; that single change makes more difference than anything else you can do. Freeze in half-cup portions and a weeknight tsebhi takes twenty minutes.

Rather than making a batch of kulet and then a stew, build the base directly in the pot you are cooking in, scaled to one meal.

Best for

cooking one stew tonight, avoiding leftovers, beginners following a recipe that says add the kulet

The result is a little less deep than a proper batch of kulet, because a smaller quantity of onion in a wider pan browns rather than melting, and browning gives a different, sharper sweetness than slow collapsing does. Keep the heat low, cover the pan for the first ten minutes, and resist stirring constantly.

Structurally this is the closest thing you can buy: cooked-down onion and tomato in fat, which is exactly what kulet is underneath the spices.

Best for

the best shop-bought option, Indian and Pakistani groceries, weeknights when the onion stage is not happening

The structure is right and the spicing is wrong. These bases are cumin and coriander led, so without adjustment the stew tastes South Asian rather than Habesha. Berbere's signature is chili heat plus fenugreek, cardamom and ginger, so those three additions do most of the correcting. Simmer the doctored base for five minutes before adding anything else so the raw spice cooks out.

Harissa is the most available chili paste that is genuinely built for stewing, and combined with cooked-down onion it gets you a functional red base.

Best for

supermarket availability, when you have no berbere at all, vegetable stews

Harissa is coriander, cumin and caraway forward and much simpler than berbere, which carries fenugreek, cardamom, ginger and often korarima behind its chili. It is also usually vinegared, so the stew comes out noticeably more sour as well as tasting North African rather than Eritrean. The fenugreek and cardamom additions matter more here than anywhere else on this list.

Not every kulet is red. The mild version swaps berbere for turmeric and is the base for the alicha family of gentle stews.

Best for

cooking for children or anyone avoiding chili, alicha stews, balancing a plate that already has fiery dishes on it

This is a legitimate alternative rather than a compromise, but be clear that it is a different dish: turmeric gives colour and a warm earthiness with no heat at all, so a stew built on it is mild, yellow and rounder. Do not use it and expect tsebhi; use it and call it alicha.

The bottom of the list, offered honestly because it is what most kitchens have and it will get dinner on the table.

Best for

absolute emergencies, when the only jars in the cupboard are Italian

Jarred tomato sauce is much sweeter and far more tomato-dominant than kulet, and it has none of the onion-jam body that gives a tsebhi its weight, so the result tastes like a spicy tomato stew rather than a Habesha one. Reduce it hard first to concentrate it, add real oil, and cook a chopped onion into it if you can spare fifteen minutes; that one step lifts it out of last place.