Shio koji substitutes

The closest thing in most kitchens, and a genuine substitute for the seasoning job.

Best for

salad dressings and dips, soups and broths, glazing and roasting vegetables, marinating fish and chicken for flavour, seasoning rice and grains

Both are koji ferments, so the family resemblance is real and this is not a stretch. White miso, or shiro miso, is made with a high proportion of rice koji and is the mildest and sweetest type, which is why it works here. The differences are that miso is beanier and more distinctly savoury, noticeably saltier per spoon, and slightly darker, so a pale dressing will turn beige and taste more assertively fermented. A quarter teaspoon of sugar per tablespoon brings back shio koji's soft sweetness. Miso's enzymes are largely inactive in pasteurised jars, so it will not tenderise.

The honest answer for marinades, and it does part of the job well.

Best for

chicken, pork and fish before grilling or roasting, steak, vegetables before roasting, any recipe where shio koji was the only seasoning

A light salt-and-sugar brine seasons the protein through, helps it hold moisture and encourages browning, which covers a good deal of what shio koji delivers and is why the results are still very good. What it cannot do is enzymatic tenderising, so a chicken thigh will taste well seasoned and juicy but will not have that particular soft, almost velvety texture. It also brings none of the savoury depth, so add half a teaspoon of soy sauce per pound if you want to close that gap. Do not extend the resting time hoping for tenderness; it will only get saltier.

Another koji-derived product, and closer in character than almost anything else.

Best for

marinating fish, especially salmon and cod, pork and chicken, pickling vegetables, soups and hot pots

Sake kasu is the pressed lees left after brewing sake, so it comes from the same koji-on-rice process and carries a similar sweet-funky fragrance plus some residual enzyme activity, meaning it does tenderise to a degree. It is more alcoholic and yeastier, so a marinade made with it smells distinctly of sake and needs cooking off, and it is thicker and pastier. Plain sake with salt is a much weaker version that adds aroma and a little tenderness but almost no umami or body, and is best in a quick fish marinade.

Easy and effective for umami and salt, entirely wrong for colour and texture.

Best for

soups, broths and simmered dishes, dressings and dipping sauces, stir-fries, seasoning cooked vegetables

Soy sauce delivers salt and glutamate efficiently, which is the loudest part of what shio koji contributes, and in a soup or a stir-fry the swap is barely noticeable. The problems come elsewhere: it is a thin dark liquid rather than a pale thick paste, so it will not cling to a piece of fish or coat a vegetable, and it will brown a dish that was meant to stay pale. It is also sharper and saltier with none of the mellow sweetness, so a quarter teaspoon of mirin or sugar per tablespoon helps considerably.

Comes at it from the sweet side, and useful when the gentle sweetness is what you are after.

Best for

marinades for pork and chicken, dressings, glazes, vegetable pickles

Amazake is rice fermented with koji and no salt, so it is the sweet sibling of shio koji and shares that distinctive mellow rice-koji aroma, and unpasteurised versions retain enzyme activity that will tenderise. Add the salt and you are genuinely close. The catch is that it is much sweeter, so a marinade made with it caramelises faster and can scorch on a grill, and it lacks the salty savoury balance unless you measure the salt properly. Rice malt syrup is a distant relative with the sweetness but none of the fermented depth.

Not a substitute but the answer if you cook Japanese food regularly, and it is nearly effortless.

Best for

all the uses above, marinating any protein, as a general-purpose salt replacement, pickling vegetables

Mix the three ingredients in a clean jar, cover loosely and stir once a day. It is ready when the rice grains have gone soft and the mixture smells sweet and faintly like melon or chestnut rather than raw. The salt proportion here, roughly 13 percent of the total, is what keeps it safe while the enzymes work, so do not reduce it. Once it smells sweet, refrigerate it, where it keeps for months. Dried rice koji is sold at Japanese grocers and keeps in the freezer, and this is dramatically cheaper than buying the paste.