No Shaoxing? No Excuse: The Supermarket Substitutes We Actually Taste-Tested

The Recipe Stops Here

There's a particular moment of deflation familiar to anyone who's ever tried to cook Chinese food at home in Britain. You've got your chicken marinating, the wok's heating up, the recipe looks dead simple — and then, line three: 'add 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine.'

Cue a trip to three supermarkets, a look at the Chinese supermarket's opening hours (closed, obviously, it's a Tuesday), and a takeaway order you didn't plan on making.

We got so tired of this that we decided to settle the question properly. Six bottles from British shops, one stir-fry recipe cooked six times, a panel of slightly over-caffeinated tasters. Here's what happened.

First, What Shaoxing Wine Actually Does

Quick science bit, bear with us. Shaoxing is a fermented rice wine from the Zhejiang province, and it brings three things to a dish: a mellow sweetness, a savoury fermented depth, and enough acidity to lift rich sauces. In marinades it tenderises; in stir-fries it deglazes and perfumes; in braises it's the background note you can't name but would miss immediately.

That's a lot to ask of a substitute. But some come surprisingly close.

The Swaps That Genuinely Work

1. Dry Sherry — The Undisputed Champion

Every Chinese restaurant veteran knows this one, and now you know why: dry sherry is nutty, faintly sweet, and has that oxidised depth that rice wine also carries. In our blind taste test, most panellists couldn't tell the difference in the finished stir-fry. It's available in every supermarket from £6 a bottle, keeps for months once opened, and a splash in your marinade is practically indistinguishable.

Verdict: buy it, keep it next to the soy sauce, stop worrying.

2. Dry White Wine — The Respectable Second

A crisp Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio (the cheap cooking bottle, not the good stuff) works well in braises and sauces. It's missing some of that fermented nuttiness, so add half a teaspoon of sugar alongside it to round things out. In a claypot chicken or a red-braised pork belly, nobody's complaining.

3. Mirin — The Sweet Sibling

Japanese mirin is sweeter and lower in alcohol than Shaoxing, so it's not a one-for-one swap. But dilute a tablespoon of mirin with a teaspoon of water and a squeeze of lemon juice or rice vinegar, and you've got something serviceable in a glaze or a noodle sauce. Most big supermarkets stock it in the world foods aisle.

4. Chicken Stock + Rice Vinegar — The Teetotal Option

If you don't want alcohol in the house at all, a tablespoon of stock with a teaspoon of rice vinegar gets you the acidity and some savoury depth. It won't perfume the dish the way wine does, but for a weeknight stir-fry it's a perfectly honourable effort.

The Two Substitutes You Should Never Use

Cooking Wine From the Vinegar Aisle

That bottle of 'cooking wine' shelved next to the white wine vinegar? It's often salted to oblivion to make it undrinkable (and therefore not taxable as alcohol in some places). It tastes like salty, flat vinegar and it will make your sauce aggressively unpleasant. Avoid.

Any Sweet Sherry, Cream Sherry or Marsala

The opposite crime. These are sweet, heavy and raisiny, and they'll turn a bright ginger-and-spring-onion chicken into something that tastes of trifle. If the label says 'cream' or 'medium', put it down.

A Note on the Marmite Trick

While we were at it, we tested one of the internet's stranger claims: that a tiny amount of Marmite can stand in for fermented bean sauces in dishes that need umami depth. Verdict? In a quarter-teaspoon dose, dissolved into a sauce, it genuinely works — that yeast extract savouriness mimics the fermented bean paste note in dishes like mapo tofu. Any more than that and you're eating toast. Proceed with caution and a very light hand.

Your Cheat Sheet

• Best all-rounder: dry sherry, one-for-one
• Best for braises: dry white wine + pinch of sugar
• Best for glazes: mirin, diluted, plus a splash of vinegar
• Best alcohol-free: chicken stock + rice vinegar
• Never: salted cooking wine or cream sherry

The point of all this isn't to say Shaoxing isn't worth owning — if you've got a decent Chinese supermarket nearby, a £3 bottle of Pagoda will last you a year and it's the real deal. But it is to say that a half-empty pantry shouldn't be the reason Friday night's stir-fry becomes a takeaway. The wok doesn't care what's in the bottle. Get cooking.