The 10 Absolute Best Fish Sauce Substitutes

For several substitutes, look toward the history of fish sauce for inspiration. Fish sauce is believed to have been discovered as an accidental byproduct of anchovy preservation. Ancient fishermen in both Asia and the Mediterranean packed tiny anchovies in salt to keep off bacteria and allowed them to ferment in the sun to preserve them. The briny, fishy liquid that seeped out was fish sauce, and ancient people enjoyed its flavor so much that they began producing it deliberately, saving the fermented paste from the solid fish for other culinary applications. Some modern styles, like Vietnamese fish sauce, are still made in much the same way today. 

Considering the origin of the first fish sauces, a tin of small anchovies may be a readily-available substitute if you can't find fish sauce. Just don't confuse anchovies with sardines. Both fish are often canned, but compared to anchovies, sardines are larger, less salty, more savory, and have bigger bones that may need to be removed from a dish.

When substituting, it's suggested to use one anchovy filet per ½ teaspoon of fish sauce. Packed with saline flavor, anchovies are so small that they can be easily blended whole and incorporated into sauces and dressings. Take, for example, the traditional use of anchovies in Caesar salad dressing or some Italian pasta sauces like puttanesca. You can also purchase pre-blended anchovy paste. Drain the tin before mashing the anchovies. Some whole anchovies are packed in olive or other oils, adding flavor to a recipe.

To understand what works as a fish sauce alternative, we have to take a look at the chemistry behind fish sauce's signature flavor. When you taste something umami, you're really tasting compounds called glutamates (glutamic acids). Our bodies evolved to find glutamates tasty because they indicate the presence of the protein we need for survival. Many ingredients naturally contain glutamates, but especially large amounts of glutamates are created when proteins break down during fermentation. That's why savory fermented sauces and pastes like soy and fish sauce exist in so many cuisines around the world and why it's possible to capture the essential flavors of fish sauce by fermenting high-protein ingredients other than fish. Our ability to taste glutamates is also enhanced by the presence of nucleotides which are also naturally present in foods such as mushrooms.

Naturally, creative and modern chefs have begun creating vegan fish sauce alternatives with ingredients like shiitake mushrooms and black garlic. Like soy sauce, these substitutes can generally be used in the same proportion as fish sauce. You can find vegan soy sauce online, in health and vegan food stores, or make it yourself. Vegan versions of oyster sauce (a thicker, sweeter Chinese sauce made from fermented shellfish, distinct from fish and soy sauces) are also commercially available.

Fermentation is only one way to break down proteins and create those delicious glutamates. A chemical process called hydrolyzation is another, wherein soybeans are treated with an acidic solution to break down the proteins, and a product called liquid aminos is made. The resulting product is rich in amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), hence its name, but lower in sodium, which liquid aminos inventor Paul Bragg believed was harmful to health when he first developed the product in 1912. Some liquid aminos available today are made from coconut sap. Despite the name, these coconut-derived products will be even closer to a fish sauce substitute than Bragg's because they are fermented, not hydrolyzed. 

Liquid aminos look and taste similar to soy sauce but are much lower in sodium than soy sauce (especially coconut aminos) and are reliably gluten-free. Liquid aminos are not commonly sold in Asian grocery stores, so they may be available even if you lack access to Asian food products. You can use liquid aminos in the same proportions as soy or fish sauce, but you may wish to add additional salt due to the lower sodium content.e

Steak sauce like Worcestershire and A1 contains many of the same compounds as soy and fish sauces. Some are even made with glutamate-rich mushrooms or anchovies, plus spices, sugar, and fruit. It may not be the closest to fish sauce on the list in terms of taste, but steak sauce can still provide a delicious and flavor-packed result. 

When substituting, be aware that steak sauce has a powerful and complex flavor that goes beyond salty and savory, which will affect the outcome of your recipe. Steak sauce is likely not the best choice of substitute in preparations where the flavor of fish sauce is meant to be prominent and complimented by just a few other ingredients, as in Southeast Asian dipping sauces. Try it in cooked sauces and stir-fries instead. Most steak sauces also contain vinegar, so you may wish to eliminate or reduce the number of acidic ingredients when cooking with it. Vegan steak sauce recipes use soy sauce as the base plus additional flavoring ingredients.

Whether it's mushroom-, vegetable- or meat-based, bouillon contains glutamic acids and can easily provide the richness of fish sauce to many dishes. In West African countries like Ghana and Nigeria, where umami-fermented pastes and sauces are traditionally produced from beans and seeds (as in Asia), many cooks now use Maggi bouillon cubes as an everyday sub for these traditional ferments. 

Some bouillon is high in sodium, but reduced or sodium-free versions are also available. Bouillon cubes are typically added to soups or sauces, but these have only been commercially available since the early 20th century; the original form of bouillon was granular chicken powder. Powdered bouillon is more versatile as a cooking ingredient and can be used in smaller amounts to season sauces and even raw salads. When cooking with bouillon cubes, the exact proportion of water to cubes varies depending on the brand of bouillon. One cup to one cube works for some brands, but for Maggi and Knorr bouillon, the ratio is two cups of liquid to one cube. Check the label to be sure of the correct ratio.

MSG (monosodium glutamate) is the star chemical component of fish sauce and of many of the foods on this list. If all else fails, powdered MSG can directly add a fish sauce-like meaty richness to your cooking. MSG is a common cooking ingredient in Asia, but rumors have long marred its reputation in the West; the avoidance of MSG is why American Maggi doesn't contain it, and some products are specifically advertised as MSG-free.

Don't believe the biggest misconceptions about MSG, such as the suggestion that it is a harmful artificial chemical that induces headaches and other health problems; it's just a type of salt, and any salt is bad for us in too-large quantities. Far from being synthetic, MSG occurs naturally in many familiar foods across every category of ingredients. The research of Kikunae Ikeda, the Japanese chemist who discovered MSG in kelp, was inspired by flavor similarities Ikeda noticed between his favorite Western and Japanese foods despite their lack of shared ingredients. We now know that Ikeda was tasting MSG and other glutamates. The shared quality Ikeda perceived in these foods was the savory flavor that he later dubbed umami, which can be translated as "deliciousness."

As it's most commonly available in powdered form, MSG is as versatile as bouillon powder and can be used in various ways. Be aware that it is still salty in addition to being savory, though not as salty as table salt (sodium chloride). Recipes typically use more table salt than MSG.