Shaoxing Wine: What It Is, How to Use It and Substitutes

Shaoxing wine is an amber Chinese rice wine from Shaoxing in Zhejiang province, and it is the bottle most Chinese recipes mean when they say “rice wine.” It is brewed from rice rather than grapes, and cooks use it for depth of flavor in marinades, stir-fries and braises. For cooking, a cheap supermarket or Asian grocery bottle is fine, but check whether it is salted. If you can’t find it, dry sherry is the usual stand-in.

What Shaoxing wine is

Wikipedia classes Shaoxing wine as a type of huangjiu (“yellow wine”), the wider family of Chinese grain wines, made by fermenting glutinous rice and water with a wheat-based yeast starter. The Woks of Life adds that written records of it go back more than 2,000 years. You may also see it spelled shao hsing, shao xing or shaohsing.

It is wine only in the loose sense that it is fermented. There are no grapes in the bottle, so it is a different product from the white and red cooking wine made from grapes, and the flavor is different too. The Spruce Eats describes it as slightly spicy and slightly sweet, and says people compare it to caramel, nuts or vinegar.

How strong is it?

The sources disagree, so read your label:

Source	Alcohol by volume
The Woks of Life	About 14–15%
Omnivore’s Cookbook	About 15–18%
The Spruce Eats	18–25%
Wikipedia, for huangjiu as a whole	Typically 8–20%

Cooking bottles vs drinking bottles

This is the difference that matters at the store.

• Cooking wine. The Spruce Eats says the bottles labeled “cooking wine” have salt added so they can be sold easily in grocery stores. The Woks of Life adds that the salt helps avoid an alcohol tax and extends shelf life. It says a bare-bones bottle works in its recipes.
• Drinking wine. Aged Shaoxing, often in a ceramic jug, is served warm as a drink, according to The Spruce Eats, which says you can cook with it too. Wikipedia notes that better-quality Shaoxing can be drunk as a beverage, while cheaper cooking versions contain added salt.

Omnivore’s Cookbook prefers unsalted wine, because its recipes assume there is no salt in the bottle and it keeps seasoning consistent. It says to look for the word “cooking” on the label to spot the salted kind, and it names Pagoda as the most widely available US brand, sold in both versions.

In our view, a salted bottle is perfectly usable as long as you know it is salted: taste as you go and hold back the salt or soy sauce until the end. If you have a choice, we’d buy unsalted, because it lets you decide the seasoning yourself.

Note: Don’t confuse Shaoxing wine with Chinese rice vinegar. The Spruce Eats warns that the vinegar will add acid, not wine flavor, and it isn’t a substitute.

Words you may see on the label

• Hua diao (“flower carving”): The Woks of Life says the name came to mean aged Shaoxing. Three-year-aged bottles often carry it, and it should indicate aging in clay jars, though that may not always be the case.
• Chia fan: more rice relative to water, and sometimes slightly more alcohol (The Woks of Life).
• Nu’er hong (“daughter red”): a celebratory style. The Spruce Eats explains the tradition of burying a bottle when a daughter is one month old and opening it at her wedding.

Wikipedia also warns that passing off wines from other regions as “Shaoxing” is a common fraud, which is one more reason not to overpay for a fancy label you can’t check. For cooking, The Woks of Life and Omnivore’s Cookbook both say you don’t need an expensive bottle.

How to use it

Here is how much The Woks of Life suggests:

Use	Amount
Marinade	About a teaspoon for a few ounces of meat
Stir-fry	A tablespoon or two, to deglaze the wok
Braises (hong shao)	Much more, such as ¾ cup in its braised fish recipe

Other classic uses include dumpling and wonton fillings, and the brine for drunken chicken. The Spruce Eats also says a dash perks up Chinese chicken stock. Serious Eats’ Chinese-American beef and broccoli shows how it works in practice: 1 tablespoon goes into the marinade with soy sauce for at least 20 minutes, and the rest of the ¼ cup goes into the sauce.

The Woks of Life recommends a longer-aged bottle for dishes where a lot of wine stays in the final dish, such as drunken chicken. We’d agree: spend a little more there, and keep the cheap bottle for stir-fries.

Substitutes for Shaoxing wine

The Woks of Life says its substitutes work 1:1 when a recipe calls for less than 2 tablespoons. When Shaoxing is a main flavor, as in a braise or drunken chicken, we doubt any swap will taste the same.

Substitute	What the sources say
Dry sherry	The Woks of Life’s most common recommendation; The Spruce Eats says pale dry sherry comes closest in flavor. Serious Eats lists “Shaoxing wine or dry sherry” in its recipe.
Other Chinese rice wine	The Woks of Life says it is fine unless Shaoxing is a main ingredient.
Dry white wine	Acceptable in marinades, says The Spruce Eats, though the flavor isn’t the same.
Sake	A decent substitute in small amounts (The Woks of Life). Omnivore’s Cookbook says it is milder, so use it in less intense, non-spicy dishes.
Mirin	The Woks of Life is hesitant but says it works in a pinch. It is much sweeter, so reduce or omit the recipe’s sugar. Omnivore’s Cookbook doesn’t recommend it.
Broth (no alcohol)	Omnivore’s Cookbook uses an equal amount of chicken or vegetable broth.
Apple or white grape juice (no alcohol)	The Spruce Eats suggests these for stir-fry marinades, with the warning that they taste sweeter.
Water (no alcohol)	The Woks of Life uses it for deglazing or adding moisture, and says amounts under 1 tablespoon can be replaced with water or left out.

The sources split on one point. The Woks of Life’s list names “dry cooking sherry”, while The Spruce Eats and Omnivore’s Cookbook specifically say to use real dry sherry, not cooking sherry. We side with real dry sherry, because salted cooking sherry adds salt you can’t take back. If you are going the other way and need to replace sherry in a Western recipe, see our sherry substitute guide.

If you are avoiding alcohol, remember that cooking doesn’t remove all of it. The Woks of Life says higher heat and longer cooking remove more, and the USDA figures in our best white wine for cooking guide show how slowly it goes. It lists non-alcoholic white wine as an option too, which may contain trace alcohol; our guide to non-alcoholic wine explains the label terms.

Important: Shaoxing wine contains wheat, so it isn’t gluten-free. Our guide to whether wine is gluten-free covers grape wine, and readers with celiac disease or another condition should ask their doctor.

Storing it

• Aged or drinking bottles: The Spruce Eats says up to six months sealed in a cool, dark place, or in the fridge if you use it slowly.
• Salted cooking wine: no fridge needed, says The Spruce Eats; keep it in the pantry and watch the expiration date. Omnivore’s Cookbook says it lasts at least a year in the cupboard.
• In general: The Woks of Life says 6 months to a year sealed in a cool, dark pantry, longer in the fridge.
• After opening: Omnivore’s Cookbook gives at least 6 months for an open unsalted bottle, and up to a year in the fridge for flavor.

Drinking it

If you buy a drinking-grade bottle, Wikipedia says huangjiu is commonly served warm, and Omnivore’s Cookbook says it can also be poured chilled or at room temperature. To warm it, Omnivore’s Cookbook says to heat it gently until it steams, without boiling. We can’t point you to a specific bottle yet, since picks on this site need published critic scores and checked US prices.