Shiro powder substitutes

The real answer, because shiro powder is essentially roasted chickpea flour with a spice blend already stirred through it.

Best for

shiro wot, mitin shiro, bozena shiro, shiro fitfit

The one thing that will give you away is the roast. Supermarket besan is raw, so an untoasted version tastes green, beany and slightly bitter. Fix it by dry-toasting the flour in a skillet over medium-low heat, stirring constantly for 4 to 6 minutes, until it darkens a shade and smells nutty rather than grassy. That single step is the biggest quality difference between this and real shiro powder.

The mild white version, for anyone cooking for people who cannot eat chili or making a nech shiro on purpose.

Best for

nech shiro, cooking for children or anyone avoiding heat, fasting-day beyaynetu, a mild stew to sit next to a spicy one

Toast the flour the same way. Without berbere the stew has nowhere to hide, so it lives or dies on the onion base and the fat: sweat the onions properly until they collapse, and finish with a spoon of niter kibbeh or ghee off the heat. Some cooks add a pinch of turmeric to warm the colour, which is not traditional in every household but tastes good.

Yellow split peas dry-toasted and ground fine in a spice grinder, which is the traditional base for some regional shiro and for kik-based stews.

Best for

shiro wot, kik alicha style stews, when you have split peas but no chickpea flour

Split peas are sweeter and less nutty than chickpeas and have slightly less thickening power, so the finished stew is a touch looser and reads a little sweeter and gentler than a chickpea shiro. Grind it as fine as your machine will go and sieve out the grit, or the stew will feel sandy. Toast the peas whole before grinding rather than after, which is easier and gives a better roast.

Red lentils ground fine, which is the fastest-cooking of the legume flours and the easiest to grind at home.

Best for

a quick weeknight shiro, shiro wot, thickening a misir-style stew

Red lentils break down faster than any other legume, so this thickens quickly and smoothly, but it also goes further orange-pink than shiro's sandy brown and tastes distinctly sweeter with less body behind it. The stew will feel thinner in the mouth even at the same thickness on the spoon. Pull it off the heat earlier than the recipe says and let it sit, because it keeps thickening.

Ground dried fava beans, sold in Middle Eastern and North African grocers and used in some regional Ethiopian shiro.

Best for

shiro wot, a deeper, earthier stew, bozena shiro with meat

Fava flour is the most robust of the options and thickens hard, so the stew comes out dense and earthy with a faint bitter note from the bean skins if the flour was not hulled. It stands up well to a heavy hand with berbere and to meat, and it is the wrong choice for a delicate nech shiro. Add liquid more generously than you would with chickpea flour.

The no-flour emergency route, using whole chickpeas blitzed with the spices instead of a milled flour.

Best for

when you have no legume flour at all, a rough shiro-style stew, using up a can of chickpeas

This is the least-bad option, not a good one. Canned chickpeas are boiled rather than roasted, so you lose the nutty depth entirely, and they will not thicken by starch release the way a flour does, so you have to reduce the stew down instead. Even a good blender leaves it slightly grainy rather than silky. Blend with a little of the hot cooking liquid, then simmer longer than you would a flour-based shiro.