Tangerine substitute

Best substitute

Clementines, Satsumas or Mandarins

Use the same amount for juice, zest, segments or whole fruit as the tangerine you are replacing

Best for juice for sauces and dressings

Close match

Any mandarin works one for one: clementines, satsumas and honey tangerines are all close relatives and behave identically in juice, zest or segments. Regular oranges are the next best swap at one for one, though they are more acidic and less perfumed, so add a quarter teaspoon of sugar per tablespoon of juice if the recipe was relying on tangerine sweetness. Work out which part you need first, because the answer differs: tangerine juice is sweetness plus mild acid, tangerine zest is pure aromatic oil and cannot be replaced by juice, and dried tangerine peel in Chinese braises is a bitter-fragrant seasoning of its own.

Other tangerine substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Orange (juice and zest)
Close match
Use the same amount plus ¼ tsp sugar per tbsp of juice
The most available substitute.
What changes
Use the juice and zest of a navel or Valencia orange in place of tangerine juice and zest, in the same volumes.
Best for
cakes and cookies, sauces and glazes, marinades, dressings, cocktails and drinks
Close enough for almost every recipe, with two differences worth correcting for. Orange juice is more acidic and less honeyed, so a tangerine cake made with it tastes brighter and slightly sharper, which the small amount of sugar fixes. Orange zest is a bit heavier and less floral than tangerine zest, so use a touch less if the aroma is the star, as in a chiffon cake or a shortbread.
3Canned Mandarin Segments in Juice
Different texture
Use the same amount for segments, drained
Peeled, sectioned mandarins packed in juice or light syrup.
What changes
Drain well and use them wherever fresh tangerine segments were going, and save the liquid as part of a dressing or a drink.
Best for
salads, jelly and desserts, cake toppings, fruit cups, Chinese chicken salad
Genuinely convenient and, for a topping or a salad, hard to fault. The segments are much softer than fresh, with the membranes chemically removed, so they collapse if you stir them into anything vigorously and they cannot stand in for firm fresh segments in a dish where texture matters. Buy the kind packed in juice rather than heavy syrup, and cut the recipe's sugar if you use syrup-packed.
4Orange Juice plus a Squeeze of Lemon or Lime
Close match
3 parts orange juice to 1 part lemon or lime juice, replacing tangerine juice 1:1
Use this when the tangerine juice is being reduced into a sauce or glaze and you want a sharper finish rather than a sweeter one.
What changes
Best for
pan sauces and glazes, marinades, vinaigrettes, sorbet, cocktails
Slightly counterintuitive but useful: a lot of recipes that call for tangerine juice are after a bright citrus edge, and bottled orange juice on its own tastes flat and cooked. The lemon or lime restores liveliness. Do not use this version in baking, where the extra acid can react with baking soda differently and throw the rise off.
5Dried Orange Peel or Fresh Orange Zest (for dried tangerine peel)
Taste and texture differ
Use 1 piece dried orange peel, or 1 tsp fresh zest, for every piece of dried tangerine peel
The right answer when a Chinese recipe calls for dried tangerine peel, chenpi, in a braise, a sauce or a red-cooked dish.
What changes
Dried orange peel is the closest substitute, and fresh zest is the fallback.
Best for
Chinese braises and red-cooked dishes, beef and pork stews, steamed dishes, spice blends, broths
This is a different ingredient from the fresh fruit and needs saying plainly: aged dried tangerine peel is bitter, resinous and deeply aromatic, and it is doing an aroma-and-bitterness job in a long braise, not a sweetness job. Fresh zest gives you the perfume but none of the bitter depth and burns off quickly, so add it late and use twice as much. Never substitute tangerine juice for dried peel; it will make the braise sweet and thin.
6Tangerine or Orange Marmalade (in baking and glazes)
Taste and texture differ
Use 1 tbsp marmalade for every 1 tsp zest plus 1 tbsp juice, and reduce recipe sugar by 1 tbsp
A cupboard fix for cakes, glazes and sauces that need both the peel aroma and the juice.
What changes
Warm it slightly and whisk it in, or push it through a sieve if you want no shreds.
Best for
cake and quick bread, glazes for ham or duck, cookie filling, sauces, yoghurt and porridge
Effective because marmalade contains exactly the two things you are missing, peel oil and citrus juice, already concentrated. The trade-offs are added sugar, which you must subtract from the recipe, and a slight cooked-fruit and faintly bitter flavour rather than the fresh brightness of a just-zested tangerine. Not suitable for a fresh salad or a drink.

What is Tangerine?

Tangerine is A tangerine is a small, loose-skinned orange citrus in the mandarin family, sweeter and less acidic than a regular orange, with thin fragrant peel and juice that tastes bright and honeyed rather than sharp.

Cooking tips

Zest before you peel. Tangerine skin is thin and loose, and once you have pulled it off in pieces it is much harder to zest cleanly, so run the fruit over a microplane while it is still whole even if you only need the segments.
Tangerine zest is where nearly all the aroma lives, and it is not replaceable with juice. If a recipe calls for both and you only have juice, the cake or cookie will taste noticeably weaker; add a drop of orange extract or a little marmalade rather than more juice.
The pith on a tangerine is thin and mild compared with an orange, so tangerine segments can go into a salad whole without the fussy supreming a grapefruit or navel orange needs. Just pull off any obvious stringy bits.
Tangerine juice is sweeter and lower in acid than orange juice, which matters in anything set with gelatine or thickened with cornstarch, since it is the sugar and the acid balance that determine how the final thing tastes rather than just the citrus flavour. Taste and adjust sugar rather than assuming a straight one-for-one is perfect.
Dried tangerine peel, chenpi, is worth making yourself if you cook Chinese food. Dry the peel of a few tangerines on a rack for several days until brittle and keep it in a jar; it improves with age and one small piece will transform a beef or pork braise.

Frequently asked questions

Are tangerines and mandarins the same thing?

A tangerine is a type of mandarin, so all tangerines are mandarins but not all mandarins are tangerines. Clementines and satsumas are also mandarins. For cooking purposes the distinction does not matter: they swap one for one in juice, zest and segments, with clementines slightly sweeter and satsumas slightly milder.

Can I use orange juice instead of tangerine juice?

Yes, one for one, with a small correction. Orange juice is more acidic and less honeyed, so add about a quarter teaspoon of sugar per tablespoon of juice if the recipe was leaning on tangerine sweetness. In a savoury sauce or marinade you can skip the sugar entirely, since the extra brightness is usually welcome.

Can I leave the tangerine out?

It depends which part. Tangerine segments in a salad or fruit cup can be swapped for any other citrus or dropped in favour of more of the other fruit. Tangerine juice in a sauce can be replaced with orange juice. Tangerine zest in a cake cannot simply be omitted, because it is providing most of the flavour and there is no liquid substitute for it; use orange zest, lemon zest or a little marmalade instead.

How much juice and zest does one tangerine give?

A medium tangerine yields roughly two to three tablespoons of juice and about a teaspoon of finely grated zest. That is a little less juice than a small orange, so if a recipe calls for half a cup of tangerine juice, plan on three or four fruit, and note that clementines and satsumas run smaller still.

What can I use instead of dried tangerine peel in a Chinese braise?

Dried orange peel is the closest and works one for one. If you only have fresh fruit, use about two teaspoons of fresh orange or tangerine zest added in the last 20 minutes of cooking, and accept that you will get the perfume without the aged bitterness that gives the braise its depth. Do not use tangerine juice, which will sweeten and thin the sauce instead.

Related substitutes

More fruits substitutes

Tangerine substitute

Other tangerine substitutes

2Orange (juice and zest)

3Canned Mandarin Segments in Juice

4Orange Juice plus a Squeeze of Lemon or Lime

5Dried Orange Peel or Fresh Orange Zest (for dried tangerine peel)

6Tangerine or Orange Marmalade (in baking and glazes)