Sauerkraut juice substitutes

The nearest thing in a normal fridge. Same round lactic sourness and roughly the same saltiness, so a dressing or a marinade behaves identically. Dill and garlic come along for the ride, which makes a vinaigrette taste herbier and a rye dough faintly pickly. Choose a refrigerated naturally fermented jar over a shelf-stable vinegar pickle if you have the option.

Best for

salad dressings, marinades, rye bread dough, braises, Bloody Marys

Prep

Strain out any seeds. Taste your dish before adding further salt.

Shelf-stable pickles are made with vinegar, so their brine tastes sharper and has no live cultures.

Also a live cabbage ferment, so the underlying sourness is genuinely the same. What changes is everything on top: chilli heat, garlic, ginger and usually a fish-sauce savouriness, which makes a dressing much bolder and tints it pink. Cut other salt in the recipe, because kimchi brine is usually saltier than kraut juice.

Best for

marinades, braises, dressings, savoury dishes

Prep

Spoon off the liquid from a jar of ripe kimchi. Strain through a sieve.

Excellent in a pork braise or a slaw dressing; wrong in a delicate potato salad.

Covers the two jobs that matter most, acid and salt, using things everyone has. The difference is real but narrow: vinegar gives a sharper, cleaner, more one-dimensional sourness where lactic fermentation gives a rounder, slightly savoury one, and there is no fermented funk and no live culture at all. In a cooked dish almost nobody would notice.

Best for

braises, soups, marinades, rye bread dough

Prep

Stir until the salt dissolves. Taste and add a further teaspoon of vinegar if it seems flat.

Apple cider vinegar works too and tastes slightly fruitier, which suits pork dishes.

This is the actual ingredient, not a substitute, and most people overlook it. A 500 g jar of kraut yields roughly 1/3 cup of brine once you press it properly, which is enough for most recipes that call for kraut juice.

Best for

any recipe calling for sauerkraut juice, dressings, rye dough

Prep

Tip the kraut into a sieve over a bowl and press hard with the back of a spoon, or gather it in a clean cloth and twist.

Buy refrigerated kraut if the recipe wants live cultures; canned and shelf-stable kraut has been pasteurised.

Sour, salty and savoury, so it hits the same broad notes, but both are noticeably saltier and carry a bitter or peppery edge that kraut juice does not have. Good in a marinade, a savoury dressing or a Bloody Mary; less good in bread, where the bitterness shows.

Best for

marinades, savoury dressings, cocktails, pan sauces

Prep

Strain, and reduce the recipe's salt by about a quarter teaspoon per ¼ cup used.

Pepperoncini brine is the milder and closer of the two.

Only useful where the recipe wants sour liquid in a dough, as in a rye or a soda bread. It is dairy-sour rather than vegetable-sour, so the tang is softer and creamier, and the added fat gives a noticeably more tender crumb. Add salt, because neither contains any.

Best for

rye bread dough, soda bread, batters

Prep

Bring to room temperature before mixing into a yeast dough.

Do not use this in a savoury braise or dressing, where the dairy will look and taste out of place.