Rambutan substitutes

The closest relative and the most available. Peel and pit fresh lychees, or drain canned lychees in syrup and use them exactly as the recipe uses rambutan.

Best for

fruit cups and salads, Thai and Malaysian desserts, cocktails and iced drinks, sorbet, curries that use canned fruit

So close that most people cannot tell them apart in a bowl. Lychee is a little more floral and rose-scented and slightly less acidic, so a dessert made with it comes out more perfumed and marginally sweeter. If your recipe relied on rambutan's tang to cut a rich coconut base, add a small squeeze of lime. The flesh of lychee is a touch softer and less crisp.

The same fruit, peeled and packed in light syrup, and stocked by nearly every Asian grocer. This is the practical substitute when a recipe says fresh rambutan, which is seasonal and rarely on Western shelves.

Best for

desserts, fruit cocktails, Thai curries and salads, drinks, sticky rice plates

Softer and sweeter than fresh, without the crisp snap that makes fresh rambutan pleasant to eat out of hand, and the syrup dulls the perfume. Drain well and cut the recipe's sugar by about a quarter. Many brands stuff each fruit with a piece of pineapple, which adds a bright tropical tang; keep it if that suits the dish, and buy an unstuffed brand if it does not.

The third member of the family, smaller than rambutan with a smooth tan shell and the same translucent flesh. It is used in the same desserts, sweet soups and drinks across Southeast Asia and China.

Best for

sweet soups and tong sui, fruit cups, drinks, desserts in syrup, chilled fruit plates

Sweeter and distinctly muskier, with a smoky, almost raisin-like aroma when dried, so a dish made with longan tastes deeper and less bright than one made with rambutan. The fruit is also noticeably smaller, so a fruit cup will look different. Excellent in anything in syrup, less good where you needed a large satisfying piece of fruit.

Another Southeast Asian canned white-fleshed fruit, tangier than rambutan and sold in the same aisle. Use the drained segments in place of whole rambutan.

Best for

fruit cocktails, desserts, drinks, sorbet

A good match on colour and sweetness with a rounder, peachier tang and a softer, segmented flesh rather than a single firm ball. It reads as a slightly more sophisticated version of the same idea. Because the segments break apart, it does not hold up in a dish where you wanted a whole fruit to bite into.

The pantry improvisation. Use firm seedless green grapes, slip off the skins if you have the patience, then toss with rose water and sugar and let them sit ten minutes.

Best for

fruit salads, desserts, drinks and cocktails, garnish

Better than it sounds, because it solves both problems at once: grapes already have the firm snapping juiciness of rambutan flesh, and rose water supplies the floral perfume that is the fruit's signature. Go light on the rose water, since too much tastes like soap. Skin-on grapes still work, they simply look less like rambutan.

The last resort, for a mixed dessert or a fruit cup where you need bulk in syrup and rambutan was one component among several.

Best for

fruit cups, trifle, jelly and dessert soups, shaved ice toppings

Honest assessment: this fills the bowl but does not taste of rambutan at all. Canned pear is soft, grainy and mild where rambutan is firm, juicy and perfumed, and it has no floral aroma whatsoever. If this is what you have, add a quarter teaspoon of rose water and a squeeze of lime per cup, which will not make it rambutan but will stop it tasting like plain tinned pear.