Unagi substitute

Best substitute

Broiled Mackerel (Saba Kabayaki Style)

Use the same amount by weight as the unagi you are replacing

Best for rice bowls (donburi)

Taste and texture differ

You need to replace two things: an oily fish and the sweet soy lacquer. Broiled mackerel brushed with the glaze is the classic home swap and the closest in richness. Salmon belly works 1:1 and is the easiest to buy. Black cod (sablefish) is the best texture match if you can get it. Grilled eggplant is the genuine vegetarian version. Remember that eel sauce is the glaze, not the fish.

Other unagi substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Black Cod (Sablefish)
Different taste
Use the same amount
An extremely fatty white fish with a silky, almost gelatinous bite.
What changes
Best for
rice bowls, broiling with glaze, special-occasion cooking
The best texture match available. It has the same unctuous, melting quality that makes unagi worth eating, and it takes a lacquer beautifully. It is much milder and sweeter, and the flesh is white rather than dark, so the bowl looks paler. Expensive, but this is the swap that actually satisfies.
3Salmon Belly or Skin-On Salmon Fillet
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Fatty salmon broiled and glazed until the surface caramelises.
What changes
Best for
rice bowls, sushi rolls, weeknight cooking
The most available option. Salmon is sweeter and much milder than eel and breaks into large flakes rather than holding together in one silky strip, so a bowl made with it eats softer and less rich. Use the belly if you can, since the thin fillet ends dry out under a broiler.
4Anago (Saltwater Eel)
Close match
Use the same amount
Conger eel, prepared the same way as unagi but leaner.
What changes
Best for
nigiri, rice bowls, tempura
Actual eel, so the flavour is right and the texture is close. It is noticeably leaner and more delicate, which makes the finished piece lighter and a little drier, and it is usually served with a thinner glaze or just salt. Often cheaper and easier to find frozen than unagi.
5Grilled Eggplant (Nasu Kabayaki)
Different taste
Use 1 medium eggplant for every 2 servings
Eggplant scored, fried or grilled until collapsing, then glazed like eel.
What changes
Best for
vegetarian and vegan rice bowls, everyday cooking
A real Japanese dish in its own right and the honest vegetarian answer. Cooked properly it goes genuinely silky and soaks up the glaze, but it brings no fat, no protein and no marine flavour, so the bowl eats lighter and reads as sweet-savoury vegetable rather than rich fish. Fry it in a generous amount of oil, not a teaspoon, and glaze it heavily.
6Glazed Firm Tofu or King Oyster Mushroom
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume
Pressed tofu slabs or thickly sliced mushroom stems, scored, seared and lacquered.
What changes
Best for
vegan rice bowls, meal prep
The weakest option and worth being honest about. Scoring the surface in a crosshatch and glazing hard gets you the look and the sweet-salty flavour, and mushroom stems give a pleasant dense chew, but there is no richness at all. Add a slick of toasted sesame oil to the rice to put some fat back in.

What is Unagi?

Unagi is freshwater eel that has been split, skewered, grilled and lacquered with a sweet soy glaze, sold vacuum-packed and already cooked as unagi kabayaki and served over rice or as nigiri.

Cooking tips

Vacuum-packed unagi is already fully grilled and glazed. It needs 4 to 6 minutes in a hot oven or 2 minutes under a broiler, no more, and steaming it in the bag over rice is even gentler. Cooking it as if it were raw fish is what turns it stringy.
If you are substituting, make the glaze rather than skipping it, because it does most of the work. Simmer equal parts soy sauce and mirin with half a part sugar and a splash of sake until it just coats a spoon, then brush it on in three or four thin layers, letting each one set under the heat.
Spoon a little glaze over the rice as well as the fish. In a proper unadon the seasoned rice underneath is half the dish, which is why a bare grilled fillet on plain rice tastes like it is missing something.
Broil skin-side up and slash the skin in a few places on any oily substitute. The fat renders, the skin blisters and you get the faintly charred edge that the sweet glaze needs to push against.
A pinch of sansho pepper, or failing that a little lemon zest or shichimi togarashi, cuts the sweetness. Without something sharp, a glazed rice bowl tastes flat after the first few bites.

Frequently asked questions

Is unagi the same as eel sauce?

No, and this trips up a lot of people. Unagi is the grilled eel itself; eel sauce, also called unagi sauce or nitsume, is the thick sweet soy glaze brushed over it. Confusingly the sauce usually contains no eel at all. If your recipe needs the sauce rather than the fish, you want a soy, mirin and sugar reduction.

Can I make unagi don without eel?

Yes, and it is a common home solution in Japan. Broil an oily fillet such as mackerel, salmon or black cod, brush it three or four times with a soy, mirin and sugar glaze until lacquered, and serve it over seasoned rice with more glaze spooned on top. Mackerel is the closest in richness, black cod the closest in texture.

Can I just leave it out?

Not in a rice bowl, where the eel is the entire dish. In a sushi roll that contains several fillings you can drop it and lean on the eel sauce plus avocado and cucumber for richness, but expect the roll to taste sweet and mild rather than savoury.

Are unagi and anago the same thing?

They are different eels. Unagi is freshwater eel, fatty and robust; anago is saltwater conger eel, leaner and more delicate. Anago is a good substitute and often cheaper, but it will not give you the same unctuous mouthfeel.

Why is unagi so expensive?

Eel cannot yet be bred commercially at scale, so farms are stocked with wild-caught juveniles, and stocks of Japanese and European eel have declined sharply. That combination of limited supply and high demand keeps prices high and is the main reason cooks look for alternatives in the first place.

Related substitutes

More seafood substitutes

Unagi substitute

Other unagi substitutes

2Black Cod (Sablefish)

3Salmon Belly or Skin-On Salmon Fillet

4Anago (Saltwater Eel)

5Grilled Eggplant (Nasu Kabayaki)

6Glazed Firm Tofu or King Oyster Mushroom