Polenta substitute

Best substitute

Coarse yellow cornmeal

Use the same amount as the polenta you are replacing

Best for creamy polenta

Close match

Use coarse yellow cornmeal at a straight 1:1 swap by weight or volume, because polenta is cornmeal, just ground coarse. Stone-ground grits are the next best option and behave almost identically. If all you have is fine cornmeal, use the same amount but cut the liquid by about a quarter and expect a smoother, softer result. Do not reach for masa harina, corn flour or cornstarch, which are not interchangeable.

Other polenta substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Stone-ground grits
Close match
Use the same amount
Coarsely ground dried corn from the American South, usually from dent corn and often white rather than yellow.
What changes
Best for
creamy polenta, cheesy baked polenta, polenta under braised meat, breakfast dishes
Prep. Use the same 1:4 ratio but check at 25 minutes, as grits often soften faster; add a splash more hot liquid if it stiffens before the grains are tender.
Grits are milled a little more unevenly than polenta, so the finished pot is slightly looser and more speckled in texture rather than uniformly smooth. The flavour is milder and rounder with less of polenta's faintly sweet corn edge, and white grits will make the dish pale instead of golden. Neither of those matters once butter and cheese go in. Avoid quick or instant grits here, which turn pasty.
3Fine or medium-grind cornmeal
Different texture
Use the same amount
Standard supermarket cornmeal, the kind sold for cornbread.
What changes
Best for
creamy polenta in a hurry, polenta as a soft bed for sauce, weeknight cooking
Prep. Whisk into simmering liquid at roughly 1 part cornmeal to 3 parts liquid, cook 12 to 15 minutes, and pull it while it still slumps off the spoon.
This is the compromise most home cooks actually end up making, and it works, but the result is noticeably different: it thickens in 10 to 15 minutes instead of 40, and it sets up smooth and slightly pudding-like rather than giving you those tiny distinct grains you feel on the tongue. Because it absorbs faster, use about a quarter less liquid or you will end up with soup that later turns to cement. It also sets much softer, so it is a poor choice if you plan to chill it and grill slices.
4Instant or quick-cooking polenta
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Cornmeal that has been pre-cooked and dried so it rehydrates in a few minutes.
What changes
Best for
five-minute polenta, weeknight dinners, when the pot is the bottleneck
Prep. Follow the box, which is usually 1 part polenta to 4 parts boiling liquid for 3 to 5 minutes of hard whisking, then rest it off the heat for 5 minutes before serving.
Genuinely useful and no shame in it, but be honest about what you lose. Precooking drives off a lot of the toasted corn aroma, so the finished polenta tastes flatter and slightly cardboardy compared with the traditional kind, and the texture is uniformly smooth with none of the grainy bite. Compensate with more salt than you think, a bigger knob of butter, and a hard hit of grated cheese at the end.
5Semolina
Different taste
Use the same amount
Coarsely milled durum wheat, the flour used for dried pasta.
What changes
Best for
a soft savoury base under stew, gnocchi alla romana, when there is no corn in the house
Prep. Whisk 1 part semolina into 4 parts simmering salted liquid and cook 10 minutes until it pulls away from the side of the pan; finish with butter and cheese.
This is a substitution of function, not flavour. Semolina cooked in salted milk or stock gives you the same soft, spoonable, sauce-catching bed that polenta gives you, and it sets firm enough to cut into squares and fry. But it tastes of wheat, not corn: cleaner, blander, faintly nutty, with none of the sweetness. It is also not gluten-free, which matters if that was the reason polenta was in the recipe. Do not use it in polenta cake or any baked recipe leaning on corn flavour.
6Pre-cooked polenta tube
Different taste
Use the same amount by finished weight
A shelf-stable log of already-cooked, already-set polenta sold in a plastic sleeve.
What changes
Best for
grilled polenta rounds, pan-fried polenta, baked polenta with sauce, polenta fries
Prep. Slice into 1cm rounds, pat completely dry, then sear in oil or butter for 4 to 5 minutes a side until crusted.
Only a substitute for firm polenta, never for creamy. A 500g tube stands in for roughly one batch made from a cup of dry cornmeal. Straight out of the sleeve it is bland and a bit rubbery, and it will not mash back into anything creamy no matter how much milk you add. Slice it thick, dry the cut faces well, season aggressively and get real colour on it in a hot pan, and it becomes very good.

What is Polenta?

Polenta is Polenta is coarsely ground dried corn from northern Italy, cooked slowly in salted water or stock until it becomes a soft porridge that can also be chilled until firm and then sliced, grilled or fried.

Cooking tips

Polenta and cornmeal are the same ingredient at different grinds, so the question is almost never whether you can swap but how much liquid to use. Coarse grinds want about 4 parts liquid to 1 part grain; fine grinds want closer to 3. Guessing wrong in the coarse direction gives you gluey polenta and in the fine direction gives you soup.
Add the grain to liquid that is simmering, not at a hard rolling boil, and pour it in a thin stream while whisking with the other hand. Dumping it into boiling water is the single most common cause of lumps, and lumps never fully dissolve later.
Salt the cooking liquid at the start rather than salting at the end. Corn is bland and absorbs seasoning as it hydrates, so polenta salted after cooking tastes salty on the surface and flat underneath.
Cooking it in stock or half milk instead of all water, and stirring in butter and grated hard cheese off the heat, is what separates good polenta from wallpaper paste. This matters even more when you are using instant polenta or a tube, both of which start out flavour-poor.
To turn any of these into firm polenta for grilling, pour the finished pot into an oiled sheet pan to about 2cm deep, smooth the top, and refrigerate at least two hours until it is sliceable. Coarse grinds set firmest; fine cornmeal and semolina set softer and need longer chilling.

Frequently asked questions

Is polenta the same thing as cornmeal?

Essentially yes, and this trips up almost everyone. Polenta is not a special grain, it is a northern Italian dish made from coarsely ground dried corn, and the boxes sold as polenta contain coarse cornmeal. The real differences are grind size, which changes the texture and cooking time, and the corn variety, since traditional Italian polenta uses flint corn while most American cornmeal uses dent corn. If your recipe says polenta and your cupboard says coarse cornmeal, you already have what you need.

Can I use grits instead of polenta?

Yes, one for one, and it is one of the best swaps available. Stone-ground grits are coarsely ground dried corn just like polenta, and they cook the same way in the same ratio of liquid. Expect a slightly looser, more unevenly grainy pot with a milder flavour, and if you are using white grits the dish will be pale rather than golden. Skip quick and instant grits, which have been pre-cooked and turn pasty.

Can I just leave the polenta out?

It depends on whether it is the plate or the seasoning. If polenta is the base under a stew, ragu or braise, you can swap the whole idea for mashed potatoes, soft cheesy rice, buttered egg noodles or crusty bread and the meal still works, because the job is a soft starchy foil for a rich sauce. If polenta is structural, as in a polenta cake, polenta-crusted fish or polenta fries, leaving it out does not work and you need one of the corn-based swaps above.

Can I use masa harina, corn flour or cornstarch instead?

No to all three, and this is worth being firm about. Masa harina is corn that has been soaked in an alkaline lime solution, which gives it the unmistakable smell and taste of a fresh tortilla; used as polenta it makes an oddly slick, tamale-flavoured mush that fights whatever you serve on it. Corn flour is milled far too fine and turns to glue. Cornstarch is pure starch with no corn flavour or body at all and will simply thicken your liquid into a gel.

What is the difference between instant polenta and traditional polenta?

Instant, sometimes labelled quick-cooking, has been steamed and dried before packaging, so it rehydrates in three to five minutes instead of thirty to forty. The tradeoff is flavour and texture: precooking strips out much of the toasted corn aroma and gives you a uniformly smooth result rather than one with a slight grainy bite. It is a reasonable weeknight choice as long as you push the seasoning, butter and cheese harder than the box suggests.

Related substitutes

More grains & starches substitutes

Polenta substitute

Other polenta substitutes

2Stone-ground grits

3Fine or medium-grind cornmeal

4Instant or quick-cooking polenta

5Semolina

6Pre-cooked polenta tube