Red Wine Substitute: What to Use in Stews, Sauces and More

The best red wine substitute for most savory cooking is beef broth with a little red wine vinegar. It replaces the liquid and the acidity, and it’s already in most pantries. If you want more of wine’s depth, America’s Test Kitchen found that strong black tea with a little vinegar came surprisingly close in a pot roast, and red vermouth works if alcohol is fine. Red wine does several jobs in a dish, so the right swap depends on which one matters most.

What red wine adds

The Spruce Eats points to flavor, color and acidity, and says beef broth adds flavor and color but isn’t nearly as acidic as wine. America’s Test Kitchen adds a fourth: tannins, the bitter compounds in red wine that also occur in tea, coffee and dark chocolate, and that help balance the richness of beef. A good swap covers as many of these as it can. The Spruce Eats also warns that most substitutes will change the flavor, so it may be worth a test run before you serve the dish to guests.

Quick substitution table

Substitute	How to use it	Source
Beef broth plus red wine vinegar	½ teaspoon vinegar per ½ cup broth, stirred in just before serving	America’s Test Kitchen (“Cooking with Wine”)
Beef broth plus white vinegar	Same amount of broth as wine, with 1 teaspoon vinegar per cup	The Spruce Eats
Red grape juice	One-for-one, better with a splash of white vinegar	The Spruce Eats
Unsweetened cranberry juice	Use 100% juice, with a bit of white vinegar	The Spruce Eats
Diluted cranberry, grape or pomegranate juice	Unsweetened, with a touch of vinegar; no exact amounts	Taste of Home
Strong black tea plus vinegar	1 tea bag per 4 ounces of boiling water, steeped until cool, plus 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar	America’s Test Kitchen
Red vermouth	Replaces red wine; add a few drops of lemon juice or red wine vinegar	America’s Test Kitchen
Tomato juice	Adds flavor, acidity and salt; no exact amounts	Taste of Home

Note: America’s Test Kitchen’s vinegar amount isn’t the same on every page. Its “Cooking with Wine” guide uses ½ teaspoon per ½ cup of broth, while its “How to Substitute for Wine” page uses 1 teaspoon per ½ cup for soups and pan sauces. The Spruce Eats’ 1 teaspoon per cup matches the lower figure. In our view, start at the low end and taste before serving.

The substitutes in more detail

Broth and vinegar

The Spruce Eats says beef broth is the best broth for the job, with chicken or vegetable as a fallback. It suggests vinegar especially when wine is there to tenderize meat. Wine Enthusiast also lists broth as a pinch substitute for deglazing, but points out that wine bonds with fat and water, so it can lift more of the browned bits than broth. We’d use a low-sodium broth, since a long simmer concentrates salt as well as flavor.

Red grape juice

The Spruce Eats rates it highly if you want the color and something like the taste of red wine, and adds white vinegar to cut the sweetness and give more of wine’s aged depth. Taste of Home warns that juice’s sweetness may not work when a recipe calls for a lot of wine, so we’d be cautious in a recipe that uses a whole bottle.

Cranberry juice

The Spruce Eats calls it not as good as grape juice but acceptable in most recipes. Buy the unsweetened 100% juice: cranberry juice cocktail is likely to add too much sugar. If the recipe is already on the sweet side, such as a sauce, The Spruce Eats says you could try cranberry-grape juice, added slowly.

Strong black tea

This is the surprise. Working from a tip by British food writer Jack Monroe, America’s Test Kitchen braised a pot roast in a full bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and another in the same amount of black tea. The plain tea version was good, and a stronger brew with vinegar brought the roast and gravy remarkably close to the wine version, it reports. It uses:

• 1 tea bag (regular or decaf) per 4 ounces of boiling water, steeped until completely cool;
• 1 teaspoon of distilled white vinegar stirred into that amount.

It worked less well in a simple pan sauce, where nothing hides the difference, though the result was still acceptable. For a long braise with no alcohol, this is our favorite option here.

Red vermouth

America’s Test Kitchen says red vermouth is sweeter than red wine, but its pot roast and pan-seared steak made with it were only slightly sweeter and “still certainly acceptable.” A few drops of lemon juice or red wine vinegar offset the sweetness. An opened bottle keeps in the fridge for weeks or even months, which makes it handy. Note that it isn’t alcohol-free. Our vermouth guide explains the styles.

What not to use

• Red wine vinegar alone. The Spruce Eats says it is too biting and acidic to swap directly. A small amount stirred into broth, as America’s Test Kitchen does, is a different matter. Our guide to red wine vinegar explains why.
• Salted cooking wine, if you can help it. It contains salt and preservatives, as our cooking wine guide explains. If it’s all you have, cut the salt in the recipe.

Which substitute for which dish

Apart from the America’s Test Kitchen results, these picks are our suggestions.

Dish	Our pick	Why
Pot roast, beef stew	Strong tea plus vinegar, or beef broth plus vinegar	America’s Test Kitchen’s tea result was closest; broth is simplest
Short ribs, braised lamb	Beef broth plus vinegar, with a little grape juice	Long cooking suits broth; the juice brings back some fruit
Ragù and meat sauce	Beef broth plus vinegar	The tomatoes already add acidity, so go lightly
Pan sauce for steak	Red vermouth, or broth plus vinegar	Tea is weakest here, per America’s Test Kitchen
Sweet sauces and glazes	Red grape or cranberry-grape juice	The sweetness is welcome here
Mushroom dishes	Beef or mushroom broth plus vinegar	Keeps the dish savory

Whichever you choose, Taste of Home’s advice applies: taste before serving, because these swaps may need a pinch of salt or sugar.

How to choose

Two questions settle most cases.

Is alcohol a problem? If so, stick to broth, juice or tea. Cooking doesn’t remove all of the alcohol from wine or vermouth. USDA retention figures show a dish stirred and simmered for 1 hour keeps about 25%, 2 hours about 10% and 2.5 hours about 5%, and a sauce that only boils briefly keeps much more. Our guide to non-alcoholic wine explains the label terms if you’re thinking of using a bottle of that, though none of the cooking sources above give a ratio for it. We’d use a dry one, and taste as you go.

How much wine does the recipe use? For a splash, nearly anything works. When a recipe uses a whole bottle, the swap has to carry the flavor of the dish, and that’s where we’d choose tea or broth over juice.

If you have a bottle in the house after all, our guide to the best red wine for cooking shows which reds to use, and a box wine keeps longer if you only cook with wine now and then. America’s Test Kitchen’s broth-and-acid method works for both colors, and our white wine substitute guide covers the other options for whites.