Mulberry substitutes

The nearest match in size, colour, juiciness and how they behave in a pie or a jam. Use them whole, exactly as the recipe uses mulberries.

Best for

mulberry pie and cobbler, jam and jelly, crumble, muffins and cake, sauces and coulis

The important adjustment: blackberries are distinctly tarter and their flavour is deeper and more wine-like, where mulberry is gentle, almost floral and sweet. A mulberry pie recipe typically includes a good squeeze of lemon precisely because the fruit is so low in acid, so if you use blackberries and keep that lemon the filling will pucker. Blackberries also have hard gritty seeds, which mulberries do not, so a jam made with them is seedier unless you sieve it.

Both are soft, dark, juicy berries with a milder, rounder flavour than blackberries, which makes them a better fit for mulberry recipes. Frozen ones work fine in anything cooked.

Best for

pie and cobbler, jam, crumble, ice cream and sorbet, sauces

Closer than blackberries on flavour because they are sweeter and less sharp, and boysenberries in particular have the same soft, collapsing flesh. They are still more acidic than mulberry, just not by much, so leave the recipe's lemon as written. Both are more expensive and harder to find fresh, so this is usually a freezer-aisle answer.

The supermarket-anywhere option. Blueberries share mulberry's mild sweetness and low acidity, which is the quality most other dark berries lack.

Best for

muffins and cake, pancakes, crumble, pie, jam

A closer match on sweetness and acidity than blackberries, and a worse one on texture. Blueberries have tough skins that pop rather than melting, so a pie filling made with them stays chunky where a mulberry filling goes soft and jammy. The lemon here is to lift them, since blueberries can taste flat when cooked. The colour comes out purple-blue rather than inky red-black.

Very tart, intensely flavoured little berries, so they work best cut with something milder rather than used alone. Common in European kitchens and freezer sections.

Best for

jam and jelly, sauces for game or duck, pie, coulis, syrup

Do not use these one for one. Black currants are several times more acidic than mulberries and have a strong resinous aroma, so a straight substitution turns a gentle mulberry pie into something sharp and medicinal. Blended half and half with blueberries and a little extra sugar they make a good deep-flavoured filling, and they set beautifully in a jam thanks to their high pectin.

The right answer when a recipe calls for dried mulberries, sometimes labelled shahtoot or white mulberries, in trail mix, granola, pilaf or a Turkish or Iranian dish.

Best for

trail mix and granola, pilaf and rice dishes, energy bars, baking, compotes

Dried white mulberries are pale, chewy and honey-sweet with almost no tartness, which is closer to a golden raisin than to a dried cranberry. Golden raisins match the sweetness level well and are slightly chewier and less crumbly. Chopped dried figs match the faintly sandy, seedy texture and are a shade less sweet. Avoid dried cranberries here, since they are sharp and will read as the wrong fruit entirely.

A workable blend from ordinary summer produce, where the strawberries supply mild sweetness and the blackberries supply the dark colour and berry depth.

Best for

cobbler and crumble, pie, jam, compote, ice cream swirls

Better than either fruit alone, because the strawberry pulls the blackberry's acidity down toward the softer level mulberry sits at. It tastes more obviously of strawberry than of anything else, so pick this for a mixed-fruit dessert rather than a recipe where the mulberry flavour is meant to be recognisable. Strawberries release a lot of water, so add an extra tablespoon of cornstarch to a pie.