Locust beans (iru / dawadawa) substitutes

A fermented soybean paste doing exactly the same job as iru: deep savoury umami plus salt. It is the most available fermented bean product in ordinary supermarkets.

Best for

egusi soup, okra soup, ogbono soup, efo riro, stews and bean dishes

Miso is smoother, sweeter and far less pungent, so the soup comes out rounder and cleaner with none of iru's barnyard edge. Stir it in near the end rather than boiling it hard, and hold back your salt and bouillon until you taste, because miso is salty on its own.

A coarser, funkier fermented soybean paste than Japanese miso, with visible bean pieces and a stronger fermented smell.

Best for

egusi soup, ogbono soup, bitter leaf soup, black soup, long-simmered stews

This is the closest supermarket-available match. It is funkier and more assertive than miso, so it lands nearer to iru, but it is still sweeter and more soy-forward. Mash it into a little of the hot cooking liquid before it goes in so it disperses instead of sitting in a lump.

Whole fermented soybeans from the Japanese and Korean chiller aisle, sold in small polystyrene packs.

Best for

egusi soup, okra soup, ogbono soup, any dish where you want the ammoniac fermented note

On smell and on look this is the nearest thing to iru you can buy anywhere: the same sharp ammoniac fermented aroma from whole beans rather than a paste. It is much less salty, so add a pinch of salt or a quarter of a bouillon cube to compensate. Discard the little sachets of mustard and sauce that come with it, and rinse off some of the stringy mucilage if you do not want the pull.

The other great West African umami seasoning, ground dried freshwater crayfish or dried shrimp, usually already in the same soups alongside iru.

Best for

egusi soup, ogbono soup, okra soup, efo riro, moin moin

This does not taste like iru at all, but it fills the same slot in the flavour of the pot. You get a sweet, toasty marine savouriness instead of a fermented-bean funk, so the soup reads more seafoody and less deep. Most Nigerian recipes already ask for crayfish, so if you are substituting, simply double the crayfish rather than adding a strange new ingredient.

A pantry workaround that reproduces the fermented savoury backbone iru provides, using a fermented fish product instead of a fermented bean one.

Best for

quick weeknight stews, efo riro, beans and rice dishes, soups where iru is a background note

Fish sauce brings genuine fermented depth and plenty of salt, but it is a liquid, so it disappears into the pot instead of giving you the soft chewy specks iru leaves behind. The result is savoury and satisfying yet noticeably one-dimensional. Add it early so the raw fishy top note cooks off, and cut the salt elsewhere.

A West African fermented seed paste from the same family of seasonings, made from sesame (ogiri ijebu) or melon seed rather than locust bean.

Best for

ogbono soup, bitter leaf soup, oha soup, nsala soup

Flavour-wise this is the truest substitute, because it is the same category of ingredient and carries the same fermented pungency. It is stronger than iru, so start with two thirds of the amount. The honest catch is that ogiri is sold in the same African grocers as iru, so if you cannot find one you usually cannot find the other.