Wasabi substitutes

The single closest swap, and the honest truth is that most tubed wasabi is already mostly this, dyed green.

Best for

sushi and sashimi, soy dipping sauce, mayonnaise and dressings, steak and roast beef

Prepared horseradish is packed in vinegar, so it tastes sharper and more sour and it will loosen a dipping sauce - drain it in a fine sieve first if you want a paste that holds its shape. The heat lands in the same place, right up the nose, but you lose the slightly sweet, grassy note real wasabi has. Colour is the other giveaway: it is white, so a plate of sushi will look wrong even if it tastes right.

Same plant family, and grated to order it behaves almost exactly like fresh wasabi.

Best for

sushi and sashimi, cold noodle dishes, beef, anywhere fresh wasabi is called for

Grate it fine on a microplane just before serving and use it within about fifteen minutes, because like real wasabi the volatile heat compounds fade fast in air. It is a little more brutally hot and more earthy than wasabi and has no sweetness at all. Grate it in a ventilated spot - the fumes are genuinely eye-watering.

Mustard and wasabi share the same family of pungent compounds, so cold-mixed mustard powder produces the same sinus heat rather than a tongue burn.

Best for

soy dipping sauce, dressings and mayonnaise, marinades, when you have no horseradish at all

Cold water matters - hot water destroys the enzyme that makes the heat, and the paste needs about ten minutes to develop. The flavour is clearly mustardy rather than wasabi-like, so it works better stirred into a sauce than dabbed beside raw fish. The heat also fades within half an hour, so mix it just before you need it.

Already mixed and already fierce, which makes it the most convenient bottled substitute for the heat alone.

Best for

sandwiches and wraps, dressings, dipping sauces for fried food, beef

It is yellow, vinegary and unmistakably mustard, so a sushi plate will taste like a ploughman's lunch. What it does deliver is the same nose-first heat that people actually want from wasabi, which makes it good in anything mixed rather than anything served neat. Chinese hot mustard works the same way and is slightly closer because it is less vinegary.

This is essentially the commercial tubed wasabi recipe, rebuilt at home, and it is the best-tasting substitute you can make from a normal pantry.

Best for

sushi and sashimi, wasabi mayonnaise, poke bowls, wasabi peas and snacks

The mustard powder adds the top-end sinus heat that vinegar-packed horseradish has lost, so together they read much more like tubed wasabi than either alone. Drain the horseradish first for a stiffer paste. Matcha or a little spinach juice will green it up if you would rather skip food dye, though matcha adds bitterness.

The honest option when you have no horseradish and no mustard, because a bad green paste is worse than none.

Best for

sushi and sashimi at home, poke bowls, rice bowls

Sushi without wasabi tastes flatter and slightly fishier - the heat is there to clear the palate between pieces and cut the richness of fatty fish - but it is still good food. A thin slice of fresh chilli, a grating of daikon, or a splash of citrus in the soy sauce all do part of the job. What does not work is substituting a tongue-burning chilli sauce like sriracha, which sits in a completely different part of your mouth and tastes wrong with raw fish.