Lemon-Lime Soda substitute

Substitutes for Lemon-Lime Soda with ratios

1. 2Ginger ale

   Different taste

   Use the same amount

   Similar sugar content, similar carbonation, similar pale-gold-to-clear appearance.

   What changes

   What changes is that the citrus is replaced by warm ginger, so a punch tastes spicier and rounder and a casual highball reads as gingery rather than lemony.

   Best for

   punches, highballs, slow cooker glazes, ham and pork recipes

   The easiest one-bottle swap and it works in the great majority of recipes. Add a squeeze of lemon and a squeeze of lime if you want to pull it back towards the original. Ginger beer is much spicier and less sweet, so it is a bigger change than ginger ale.

2. 3Sparkling lemonade or Italian limonata

   Close match

   Use the same amount

   Carbonated, sweetened, citrus-flavoured, which is exactly the brief.

   What changes

   Most brands use real lemon juice, so they taste tarter and more genuinely of fruit, and they are frequently less sweet than Sprite or 7UP.

   Best for

   cocktails and spritzes, punches, anywhere you want a better-tasting result than the original

   Worth knowing: in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, lemonade means a clear fizzy lemon soda, which is essentially this ingredient. If you are following a British recipe that says lemonade, it means lemon-lime soda and not the cloudy American still lemonade.

3. 4Tonic water

   Different taste

   Use the same amount

   Clear, sweetened and heavily carbonated, so the mechanical part is right.

   What changes

   The quinine gives it a distinct bitterness that lemon-lime soda does not have, so the drink comes out drier and faintly medicinal.

   Best for

   gin and vodka drinks, adults who like bitter drinks

   Fine in a cocktail if you enjoy tonic. Wrong for baking or for a family punch, where the bitterness reads as a mistake. It also has about a third less sugar than most lemon-lime sodas, so add a teaspoon of syrup per glass if you want to match.

4. 5Still lemonade or limeade

   Different texture

   Use the same amount

   Gets the sweetness and the citrus flavour almost exactly right, and loses the carbonation entirely.

   What changes

   That is a fair trade in anything cooked or blended, and a real loss in anything served fizzy.

   Best for

   marinades, slow cooker recipes, glazes, frozen and blended drinks

   In a batter, the bubbles are part of what makes it light, so a still lemonade will give a denser, slightly heavier result. In a marinade or a braise the carbonation is irrelevant and this is the better-tasting choice.

5. 6Plain sparkling water or seltzer on its own

   Different taste

   Use the same amount plus about 2 tbsp sugar or syrup and a squeeze of citrus per cup if the recipe was relying on the sugar

   Honest assessment: on its own this is only half a substitute.

   What changes

   You get the bubbles and the liquid volume and nothing else, so the recipe comes out noticeably less sweet, thinner and flatter in flavour.

   Best for

   drinks where another ingredient is already sweet, topping off a cocktail that has its own syrup, people cutting sugar deliberately

   This is a good choice when a cocktail recipe says top with lemon-lime soda but also contains simple syrup and citrus, because the soda is mostly there for length and fizz. It is a bad choice in a batter, a glaze or a punch that has no other sweetener.