Mincemeat substitute

Best substitute

Quick homemade mincemeat, no maturing

Use the same amount makes about 2 cups as the mincemeat you are replacing

Best for mince pies

Close match

A fifteen-minute stovetop version that skips the traditional month in the jar.

Other mincemeat substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Whatever dried fruit you actually have
Close match
Use the same amount for the dried fruit in the recipe above
The same quick method built from chopped dates, prunes, figs, dried apricots or dried cranberries instead of the classic vine fruit.
What changes
Best for
mince pies, mincemeat slices, using up the back of the cupboard
This works properly, and the fruit you pick genuinely changes the pie. Dates and prunes make it darker, stickier and more treacly, closer to a sticky toffee flavour. Dried apricots and cranberries make it brighter, tarter and lighter in colour, which some people prefer. Keep the grated apple whichever fruit you use, because the apple is what stops mincemeat being cloying, and keep the citrus zest, because that lift is the difference between mincemeat and sweetened dried fruit.
3Thick jam or conserve plus dried fruit and spice
Taste and texture differ
Use ½ cup jam + ½ cup chopped dried fruit + ½ tsp mixed spice for every cup of mincemeat
The five-minute cold assembly, using a jam with body rather than a soft-set one.
What changes
Best for
mince pies in a hurry, thumbprint biscuits, swirling into a bread and butter pudding
Fig, plum, damson and apricot jam are the best bases because they have real fruit structure. Add a scrape of orange zest and a squeeze of lemon and it gets close. The honest downside is that jam has more free sugar and less fat than mincemeat, so it runs hotter and looser in the oven: fill each pie with a scant teaspoon, seal the lids well, and expect a bit more bubbling out. It will taste sweeter and less spiced than the real thing.
4Apple and dried fruit compote, alcohol-free and low fat
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Two grated apples simmered with 1.5 cups dried fruit, 1/4 cup sugar, mixed spice and a splash of orange juice for about ten minutes.
What changes
Best for
mince pies for children, alcohol-free baking, crumbles and turnovers
Genuinely pleasant, and completely different in character. Without butter or suet and without brandy it is lighter, fruitier and more obviously apple-led, so the pies taste like small apple pies rather than mince pies. It is also wetter, so drain it in a sieve for a few minutes before filling pastry. Push the mixed spice up to a heaped teaspoon per batch, because the spice is now carrying the whole festive flavour on its own.
5Crumbled Christmas pudding or fruitcake
Different texture
Use the same amount loosened with 1 tbsp orange juice or brandy per cup
Leftover steamed pudding, Christmas cake or a dense fruitcake, broken up and slackened.
What changes
Best for
mince pies, mincemeat slices, using up leftovers after Christmas
The same fruit, spice and booze family, so the flavour lands almost exactly right. The difference is that it is already baked, so it is cakey rather than jammy: the pies come out denser and more bready, and the filling does not glisten the way mincemeat does. Loosen it well or it will be dry. This is one of the best uses for leftover pudding there is.
6Plain jam on its own
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
The least-good option, worth naming because plenty of people end up here.
What changes
Best for
an emergency batch of pies, jam tarts you are prepared to call jam tarts
A pastry case filled with plain jam is a jam tart. It is sweet, one-note and missing every aromatic thing mincemeat contributes, and it will leak more than a proper filling. That said, stirring 1/4 teaspoon of mixed spice and a scrape of orange zest into every half cup of jam takes ten seconds and closes a genuinely surprising amount of the gap. Do that much at minimum.

What is Mincemeat?

Mincemeat is Mincemeat is a dark, sticky British preserve of dried fruit, sugar, citrus, warm spice, brandy and traditionally suet, matured in a jar and used to fill mince pies, and despite the name modern mincemeat contains no meat at all.

Cooking tips

Mincemeat contains no meat. The name is about five hundred years old, from when the filling really did include minced beef alongside the fruit and spice, and it stuck. Modern jars are dried fruit, sugar, apple, citrus and spice, usually bound with beef suet or vegetable suet.
If a jar or a homemade batch tastes flat, do not add sugar. Add fresh orange zest and a tablespoon of brandy or dark rum and stir. Citrus aroma and alcohol are the first things to fade in storage, and putting them back is what wakes mincemeat up.
Fill mince pies with a heaped teaspoon, not a tablespoon. Mincemeat is mostly sugar, and an overfilled pie boils over, welds itself to the tin and burns on the outside while the middle stays raw.
Vegetarian and vegan mincemeat is common and performs identically, using vegetable suet, butter or coconut oil in place of beef suet. If it matters to you, read the jar, because plenty of supermarket own-brand mincemeat is already suet-free.
Homemade mincemeat keeps about a month in a clean sealed jar in the fridge and improves for the first two or three weeks as the spice and citrus settle into the fruit. Make it in late November and it will be at its best for Christmas.
If you want to can mincemeat for shelf storage rather than keeping it refrigerated, use a tested recipe exactly as written and do not alter the fruit, sugar or citrus. Mincemeat is a low-acid preserve and some traditional versions contain meat, so the processing method depends on the specific recipe. The National Center for Home Food Preservation publishes tested mincemeat procedures. Everything else on this page assumes a batch you will keep in the fridge and use within a few weeks.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave the mincemeat out?

Not really, because in a mince pie the mincemeat is the entire point and the pastry is only the container. What you can do instead is bake the pastry cases and fill them with something else: a quick apple and dried fruit compote, a spiced jam, or crumbled Christmas pudding. If you want to skip the filling altogether you are making jam tarts or plain pastry biscuits, which is a fine thing to make, just not a mince pie.

Does mincemeat contain meat?

Almost never today. Mincemeat sold in Britain, Ireland, Australia and the US is a fruit preserve, and the name is a historical leftover from medieval and Tudor pies that genuinely did contain minced beef or mutton alongside the fruit. The one animal ingredient still common is beef suet, which is rendered fat rather than meat, and vegetarian versions using vegetable suet sit right next to it on the shelf.

What is the best substitute for mincemeat in mince pies?

A quick homemade batch, because it takes fifteen minutes and there is nothing hard about it. Failing that, half fig or plum jam and half chopped dried fruit with half a teaspoon of mixed spice per cup, or crumbled leftover Christmas pudding loosened with orange juice. All three fill pastry properly and taste festive. Plain jam alone is the weakest option and should get spice and orange zest stirred through it at minimum.

Can I make mincemeat without suet?

Yes. Butter is the easiest swap and gives a slightly softer, more spreadable set that melts a little at room temperature. Vegetable suet behaves almost exactly like beef suet. Coconut oil works for a vegan version and sets firmer than butter. You can even leave the fat out entirely, and the mincemeat will taste fine but noticeably less glossy and rich, and it will be wetter, so simmer it a couple of minutes longer to drive off liquid.

Can I make mincemeat without alcohol?

Yes. Use orange juice, apple juice or strong cold black tea in place of the brandy, roughly tablespoon for tablespoon. It tastes brighter and slightly less deep, and the important practical difference is that alcohol is a preservative, so an alcohol-free batch keeps around two weeks in the fridge rather than a month. Make a smaller quantity and use it up.

Related substitutes

More preserves substitutes

Mincemeat substitute

Other mincemeat substitutes

2Whatever dried fruit you actually have

3Thick jam or conserve plus dried fruit and spice

4Apple and dried fruit compote, alcohol-free and low fat

5Crumbled Christmas pudding or fruitcake

6Plain jam on its own