Tkemali substitute

Best substitute

Sour plums or damsons cooked with garlic and herbs

Use the same amount as the tkemali you are replacing

Best for grilled meat and kebabs

Close match

Simmer 300g halved, stoned sour plums or damsons with 4 tablespoons water for about 15 minutes until collapsing, then blend with 2 garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon ground coriander, a good handful of mint or coriander leaf and half a teaspoon of salt. Thin with water to a pouring sauce.

Other tkemali substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Unsweetened prune or plum puree with lemon and garlic
Taste and texture differ
Use ¼ cup puree plus 2 tbsp lemon juice and 1 grated garlic clove for every ¼ cup tkemali
Darker, thicker and deeper than real tkemali, with the lemon doing the souring that unripe fruit would normally supply.
What changes
Loosen with water until it pours. It reads as a rich plum sauce with a sharp edge rather than a bright wild-fruit one.
Best for
pork and lamb, grilled meats, marinades, roast potatoes
Make sure the puree is unsweetened. Baby-food prune puree and jarred plum puree are often sweetened, and once sugar is in you cannot take it out. Add stirred-in chopped coriander at the end.
3Unsweetened sour cherry or cranberry sauce with garlic and coriander
Different taste
Use the same amount plus 1 grated garlic clove and ½ tsp ground coriander per ¼ cup
Hits the sourness accurately with a sharper, more tannic edge and a distinctly red colour on the plate.
What changes
It tastes of berry rather than plum, which is a real difference, but the sour-fruit-against-fatty-meat job is done properly.
Best for
pork, lamb, grilled chicken, sausages
Must be unsweetened or barely sweetened. Standard cranberry jelly is far too sugary. Thin with water and check it makes you wince slightly before serving.
4Gooseberries or green plums, cooked the same way
Close match
Use the same amount
Gooseberries have close to the same acidity as unripe plums, so the sauce comes out at the right level of sour.
What changes
It is greener and grassier than a red tkemali, which makes it a good match for green tkemali specifically.
Best for
chicken tabaka, fish, green tkemali recipes, vegetables
Cook them until they burst, then sieve if you want to lose the skins. Add plenty of fresh coriander and mint, since green tkemali is the more herbal of the two styles.
5Pomegranate molasses thinned with water
Taste and texture differ
Use 1 tbsp molasses plus 2 tbsp water and 1 grated garlic clove for every 3 tbsp tkemali
Not a plum flavour at all, but it does the sour-fruit job convincingly.
What changes
Noticeably sweeter and more raisiny than tkemali, with a syrupy body, so it coats meat rather than running off it. Add the garlic and fresh herbs and it works surprisingly well.
Best for
grilled lamb and pork, kebabs, roast chicken, dressings
Taste as you thin it. Brands differ hugely in sweetness, and some need a squeeze of lemon to get sharp enough. Good option because it keeps indefinitely in the cupboard.
6Lemon juice, garlic, salt and coriander with a spoonful of apple sauce
Taste and texture differ
3 tbsp lemon juice plus 1 tbsp unsweetened apple sauce, 1 grated garlic clove, salt and chopped coriander
The honest least-bad option.
What changes
It supplies the sourness, the garlic and the herbs, and nothing else: no fruit depth and no body. Expect something closer to a sharp dressing than a sauce, but on grilled meat it still does most of the work.
Best for
emergencies, grilled meat, potatoes, quick table sauce
Worth making rather than skipping the sauce entirely, because the sourness is the part the dish actually needs. Do not thicken it with cornflour; that gives a gluey texture that tkemali never has.

What is Tkemali?

Tkemali is Tkemali is a thin, mouth-puckeringly sour Georgian sauce made from unripe wild plums cooked down with garlic, coriander and a mint-like herb, and it is served with grilled meat, chicken tabaka and fried potatoes the way a lemon wedge is served elsewhere.

Cooking tips

Judge it on sourness before anything else. Tkemali should make you wince very slightly on its own. If your version tastes like jam or like a fruit compote, add lemon juice a teaspoon at a time until it bites, because acidity against fatty grilled meat is the entire function of the sauce.
Do not use Chinese plum sauce or duck sauce. It is made from the same fruit and does the opposite job: sweet, thick and scented with star anise and ginger. Poured over chicken tabaka it makes the plate taste like takeaway rather than like Georgian food.
The garlic goes in raw and off the heat. Cooked garlic turns sweet and mellow, and the sharp raw bite is a large part of what people recognise as tkemali.
Pennyroyal, ombalo, is the traditional herb and is very hard to find. Spearmint with a small pinch of dried oregano is the usual home stand-in, and fresh coriander leaf and stem should always go in at the very end, uncooked.
Red tkemali, from riper plums, is fruitier and rounder; green tkemali, from unripe ones, is sharper and more herbal. Match your fruit to whichever colour the recipe names, and thin the finished sauce with water until it coats a spoon rather than sitting on it.
Homemade tkemali is a fresh sauce, not a preserve. Keep it refrigerated and use it within a couple of weeks, and never adapt a jam or canning recipe by changing the sugar or acid to make it more sour, because in preserving that balance is what keeps the jar safe. Follow a tested recipe as written and check the National Center for Home Food Preservation for current guidance.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best substitute for tkemali sauce?

Making a rough version yourself, because it only takes twenty minutes: simmer 300g of halved sour plums or damsons in a little water until they collapse, then blend with garlic, ground coriander, mint and salt. If no sour fruit is available, unsweetened prune puree loosened with lemon juice and mixed with raw garlic is the best cupboard answer, and unsweetened sour cherry or cranberry sauce with garlic works well too.

Can I use Chinese plum sauce instead of tkemali?

No, and this is the single most common mistake. Both are plum sauces, but Chinese plum sauce is sweet, thick and flavoured with sugar, vinegar, ginger and star anise, made to glaze duck. Tkemali is thin, sharply sour, garlicky and herbal, made to cut through fatty grilled meat. Swapping one for the other turns the dish sweet and makes it taste like a completely different cuisine.

Can I leave tkemali out of the recipe?

You can serve grilled meat or chicken tabaka without it, but you lose the acidity that balances the fat, and the plate tastes heavier and flatter as a result. If you truly have nothing, lemon wedges plus a bowl of grated raw garlic mixed with salt and chopped coriander gets you most of the way there and costs almost nothing.

What plums should I use to make tkemali?

Sour ones. Damsons are excellent and widely available, cherry plums are traditional, greengages work, and even ordinary supermarket plums bought deliberately underripe and firm will do. Sweet, soft, fully ripe plums make a sauce that needs a good deal of lemon juice to reach the right level of sour, so buy them hard and tart if you can.

How long does homemade tkemali keep?

About two weeks in a sealed jar in the fridge, and it freezes well in small portions or an ice cube tray, which is the practical way to keep it. It is a fresh sauce with no preserving safeguards, so do not treat it like jam and do not try to make it shelf-stable by adjusting a canning recipe's sugar or acid.

Related substitutes

More sauces & condiments substitutes

Tkemali substitute

Other tkemali substitutes

2Unsweetened prune or plum puree with lemon and garlic

3Unsweetened sour cherry or cranberry sauce with garlic and coriander

4Gooseberries or green plums, cooked the same way

5Pomegranate molasses thinned with water

6Lemon juice, garlic, salt and coriander with a spoonful of apple sauce