Taro powder substitutes

Dried powdered purple yam, a different plant from taro but the one it is constantly confused with, and the closest thing on the shelf in both colour and role.

Best for

taro milk tea and lattes, smoothies and shakes, ice cream, mousse and cake, anything that needs to be purple

Genuinely violet rather than pale lilac, and sweeter with a vanilla-coconut-pistachio character, where taro is milder, starchier and faintly grey. A milk tea made with ube tastes richer, more dessert-like and more perfumed, which most people enjoy. Check the bag: many ube powders are pure yam with no sugar or creamer, while taro drink powder is mostly sugar and creamer, so you will need to add both sugar and a splash of evaporated or condensed milk to match the body.

Fresh or frozen taro root, peeled, cut, steamed for 20 to 25 minutes until a knife slides through, then mashed smooth or blended with the milk.

Best for

the best-tasting taro milk tea, taro smoothies and slushes, taro pudding, filling and ice cream, avoiding artificial colour

This is the real flavour and it is better than the powder: nutty, mildly sweet, slightly vanilla, with a genuine silky starch body that thickens the drink on its own. Two honest caveats. It comes out grey-beige to faintly lilac, never the bright purple of a shop drink, because that purple is added colour. And taro must be cooked all the way through, since raw taro contains needle-like calcium oxalate crystals that irritate the mouth and skin. Wear gloves when peeling if your hands are sensitive.

Dried powdered purple sweet potato, sold in Asian groceries and baking suppliers, naturally strongly coloured.

Best for

colour plus body in milk tea and lattes, smoothies, baked goods and frostings

Excellent purple-magenta colour and a good starchy thickness, but it tastes clearly of sweet potato, sweeter and more earthy-caramel, so the drink reads like a sweet potato latte rather than taro. It also skews pinkish-magenta rather than the blue-lilac of taro powder. A drop of vanilla extract nudges it back toward the taro flavour profile surprisingly effectively.

Sweetened cooked taro sold in cans or tubs, used for bakery fillings, or the frozen taro puree sold for bubble tea.

Best for

taro milk tea in a hurry, taro buns, pastries and mochi filling, ice cream and mousse

Real taro flavour with none of the cooking work, and it dissolves into hot milk with a whisk. It is already heavily sweetened, so taste before adding any sugar syrup, and it is pale lavender-grey rather than vivid purple. It also brings more body than powder does, so the drink is thicker and can feel slightly gluey if you use too much.

A deliberate rebuild of what commercial taro powder actually is: creamy body, sugar, a soft nutty-vanilla aroma and purple colour.

Best for

matching the shop-bought taste and look, milk tea, slushes and shakes

Closer to a bubble tea shop drink than mashed real taro is, because most shop taro drinks are flavoured and coloured rather than made from the root. Ube extract is intensely purple and strongly perfumed, so a quarter teaspoon is plenty and more will taste synthetic. This gets you the experience, not the vegetable.

Matcha, hojicha, black sesame or vanilla milk tea powder used in place of taro.

Best for

when you just want a milk tea and taro is not available

Worth saying plainly: there is no cupboard staple that tastes like taro. If none of the options above are available, you are making a different drink rather than substituting, and black sesame or hojicha is the closest in spirit because both are mild, nutty and creamy. Do not try to fake taro with vanilla pudding mix and food dye and expect anyone to be fooled by the flavour, though the texture will be about right.