Out Of Worcestershire Sauce? Here's A Quick DIY Replacement That'll Get The Job Done

As you're putting together tonight's dinner, you tip over the bottle of Worcestershire sauce to discover the container is empty. Fear not; you have options. The original Worcestershire sauce is a thick condiment made with fermented ingredients, anchovies, garlic, and onion that adds savory, complex dimensions to recipes. This tangy addition to meals was created in the mid-1800s in Britain and has found a lasting hold in the culinary world. You can make your own vegan, anchovy-less Worcestershire sauce recipe, or look to make a simplified version using only three ingredients. 

You will need to grab soy sauce, ketchup, and either white wine or malt vinegar to whip up a mix that could be mistaken for the real deal. To add some heat to your DIY hack, you can splash hot sauce into this lineup of ingredients. Keep this ratio in mind to up the chances you'll nail your homemade replacement: For every one teaspoon of ketchup, half the amount of both soy sauce and malt vinegar. This measured recipe offers the tasting elements you'd expect from Worcestershire sauce — a bit of salty tang with a touch of sweetness to round out savory deliciousness.

As you're mixing chosen ingredients, ensure all are blended smoothly. If your soy sauce supplies have also run low, you can splash tamari or coconut aminos into your mixing dish, and if you don't have ketchup, you can get by with a combination of soy sauce and rice vinegar to replicate that salty, tangy flavor. Punch up your creation with a small addition of miso paste.

For those who can't be bothered mixing up anything, fish sauce or A1 sauce can work as comparable Worcestershire sauce substitutes. You may need to make a few adjustments, however, since Worcestershire sauce offers herbal sweetness that fish sauce doesn't provide. Add sprinkles of garlic and onion powder and a sweetener to bend fish sauce in a Worcestershire sauce direction, or thin A1 sauce to lean out the texture of the sauce that comes out of the bottle. Depending on what you're whipping up in the kitchen, other Worcestershire sauce substitutes can include anchovy paste, Maggi sauce, oyster sauce, balsamic vinegar, or red wine. Your thrifty culinary choices will largely depend on the recipes and the flavors you're after, but regardless of your quick decisions, you'll want to adjust selected ingredients to account for variations in texture and taste.