Umeboshi substitutes

Mix in a small bowl until the salt dissolves and stir it into the dish where the plum or paste would have gone. Use unseasoned rice vinegar if you have it, and reduce the salt slightly if yours is seasoned.

Best for

umeboshi salad dressings, ochazuke, cucumber and daikon salads, rice seasoning, dipping sauces

This is the honest answer for most recipes, because it replaces the two things the plum contributes that a dish actually needs. What you lose is the fruity, faintly floral, slightly fermented aroma and the red shiso perfume, so a dressing made this way tastes clean and sharp rather than complex. Add a quarter teaspoon of grated ginger or a small piece of shiso or basil to hint at that aromatic layer. It will not give you a whole plum to sit in the middle of a rice ball.

Rinse salted capers briefly, or drain brined ones, then mash them to a rough paste with the flat of a knife. The result looks and behaves remarkably like umeboshi paste.

Best for

onigiri filling, dressings and sauces, rice bowls, pasta and grain salads, spread on cucumber

The best single ingredient on this list, because capers are the other pantry item built around the same idea of intense salt plus sharp acid plus a floral-bitter edge. Capers taste more herbal and mustardy and less fruity, so an onigiri made with them reads Mediterranean rather than Japanese, but the salt-sour punch lands in the right place. Rinse them if you want the acid to dominate the salt, and skip the rinse if the dish needs the salt.

Scrape the pulp off a piece of preserved lemon, rinse the rind, and chop it very fine or blend it to a paste. The salted-citrus concentration is the closest thing most Western kitchens have to umeboshi.

Best for

dressings, rice and grain dishes, fish and chicken, vegetable sides, dipping sauces

Strong on the right axis, salty and sour with a preserved, slightly fermented depth, but the aroma is unmistakably lemon, so anything delicate will taste Moroccan instead of Japanese. Excellent in a dressing or over grilled fish, less convincing inside a rice ball where the flavour has nowhere to hide. Rinse well, since preserved lemon can be saltier than umeboshi.

Dried salted plums sold in packets at Chinese and Southeast Asian grocers. They are the same basic idea, an unripe plum preserved in salt, and are often the easiest genuine relative to find.

Best for

onigiri and rice, drinks and syrups, dressings, steamed fish, snacking

Salty and sour in the right way, but most versions are also sweetened and flavoured with liquorice, which gives a distinctly sweet-medicinal finish that umeboshi does not have. Taste one first: the plain salted kind is a very good swap, while the sweet liquorice kind will make a savoury dish taste like candy. Chop finely and use less if yours is sweet.

The version to use when you have no rice vinegar. Works anywhere the plum is being dissolved into a liquid rather than served whole.

Best for

dressings, sauces, ochazuke, cooked greens, marinades

Brighter and more obviously citrusy than the vinegar version, which is fine in a salad and slightly out of place in a hot broth where the fresh lemon note stands out. It is the sharpest of these options, so add it at the end and taste. A drop of soy sauce alongside it adds back a little of the savoury depth that long salting gives umeboshi.

An unexpected but effective improvisation for a savoury dressing or a sauce, where you want the salt to taste aged and layered rather than simply salty.

Best for

salad dressings, sauces for vegetables, grain bowls, marinades for fish

Not a flavour match, obviously, since it brings a fishy savoury depth umeboshi does not have, but it is a good match in function: intense salt with a fermented complexity that plain salt lacks. Use it in something already assertive with garlic, sesame or chilli. Do not use it in a vegetarian dish or anywhere the plum is meant to taste fruity.