Pepper jelly substitutes

This is close to how pepper jelly is actually made, so it is the swap that comes nearest. Warm the jelly until just loose, stir everything in off the heat, and chill for twenty minutes to firm up. It sets as firmly as the real thing and mounds on cream cheese exactly the same way. The differences are honest ones: the pepper flavour is raw and grassy rather than cooked and rounded, and the flecks are green rather than the red bell pepper you often see in a jar. Seed the chilies for milder heat, keep the seeds for more.

Best for

cream cheese and crackers, baked brie, glaze for meatballs or wings, spooning over grilled chicken

Red currant jelly instead of apple gives the classic red colour and a tarter result.

The closest thing on a supermarket shelf on flavour: sweet, vinegary, mildly hot, with visible chili flecks, which is the same idea in a different form. The problem is body. Sweet chili sauce is a pourable sauce, not a set jelly, so on a block of cream cheese it slides off and puddles, and in a glaze it thins the sauce. It is also more garlicky and often thinner-tasting. Use less of it, and if you need it to hold, simmer it with a quarter teaspoon of cornstarch slaked in cold water and let it cool.

Best for

glazing chicken, salmon or meatballs, dipping sauce, stirring into cream cheese rather than sitting on top, sandwich spread

Beating it into softened cream cheese instead of pouring it over solves the running problem entirely.

The pantry version of the same trick, useful when there is no fresh chili in the house. Warm the jelly, stir in the flakes and vinegar, and let it sit twenty minutes so the heat blooms out of the flakes; it will keep getting hotter for the first hour, so start low. The set holds. What you miss is the vegetal sweetness of real bell and chili pepper, so it tastes more like sweet-hot jelly and less like pepper jelly, but on a cheese board almost nobody notices.

Best for

cream cheese appetizers, baked brie, ham and pork glazes, biscuits and cheese straws

A pinch of smoked paprika adds depth and a redder colour.

Sweet plus heat, no set and no acidity unless you add it, which is why the vinegar matters. Honey is sweeter than pepper jelly spoon for spoon, so use less. On hot food, drizzled over fried chicken, pizza, cornbread or roasted carrots, it is excellent and arguably better. On a cold cheese plate it spreads out into a thin pool within a minute or two. Make your own by warming half a cup of honey with half a teaspoon of chili flakes for five minutes off the boil.

Best for

drizzling over fried chicken or pizza, cornbread and biscuits, roast vegetables, glazing pork

Do not use it as a glaze early in roasting; honey burns faster than jelly.

A very good savoury option and a real Southern habit in its own right. Apricot preserves have the firm set and tang that pepper jelly needs, so the texture is right, and the stone fruit flavour reads as deliberate rather than like a compromise, particularly with pork, ham and brie. It is fruitier and sweeter than pepper jelly and the colour is amber rather than red. Sieve out large fruit pieces if you want a smooth glossy top on cheese.

Best for

baked brie, ham and pork glazes, grilled chicken and wings, cheese boards

Add a teaspoon of Dijon mustard for a savoury glaze that tastes less like dessert.

Right flavour family, wrong texture. Pepper relish is chopped peppers in a sweet vinegar brine, so it delivers the sweet-hot-sour combination and plenty of actual pepper, but it is wet and chunky rather than glossy and set. Drain it hard in a sieve for ten minutes, and if you want it to hold on cheese, simmer the drained relish with 2 tablespoons of apple jelly per half cup and cool it. As a glaze or a topping for grilled meat it needs no adjustment.

Best for

topping grilled meat and sausages, cream cheese dips, stirred in, cornbread, burger topping

Chow chow and giardiniera are saltier than pepper jelly, so hold back on any added salt.