You don’t need to abandoned your favorite Chinese recipe because you ran out of hoisin sauce. The Best Hoisin Sauce Substitutes pick up where you left off by scouring your pantry for an easy replacement.

The Chinese dinner you’ve been preparing is almost ready, but you take a quick look at your pantry and discover you’re out of hoisin sauce. The sweet, garlicky sauce is what always takes your Asian dishes to a whole new level of deliciousness, so what can you do now that it’s not within reach?
Easy. There are several substitutes that you could include in your dinner instead, and are worth giving a shot. Chances are, you already have their ingredients at home.
Time to check out our list!
🥡 Ready-Made Hoisin Sauce Substitutes
Let’s kickstart our article by offering you a few ready-made options that could stand in for hoisin. They won’t necessarily taste exactly alike, but they might satisfy your taste buds just fine!
BBQ Sauce

Many people refer to hoisin as Chinese barbecue sauce, so it makes sense that your classic BBQ sauce might be a good alternative. These two sauces have several ingredients in common, including garlic, sugar, and different spices.
Therefore, it’s not a bad idea to grab your BBQ sauce for a marinade or use it in a tasty stir-fry recipe.
Oyster Sauce

Another awesome substitute is the yummy and flavorful oyster sauce. These both have that desirable sweet taste and a tangy flavor that can enhance all your favorite dishes.
Oyster sauce can be a wonderful addition to your seafood or meat marinades or stir-frys. Plus, you could always use it as a dipping sauce.
Tamari

If you’re on a gluten-free diet but still want a suitable alternative, tamari might just be the perfect candidate for this job. Its main ingredient is fermented soybeans, but it doesn’t include wheat so it’s a great choice for people with diet sensitivities.
As for the taste, the sauce tastes similar to soy sauce but is a bit smoother.
You can use tamari in countless scenarios: as a dressing, dipping sauce, in stir-frys, and more.
Soy Sauce

Of course, since we’ve mentioned tamari, it’s fair to suggest soy sauce as a substitute for hoisin sauce as well. Both have fermented soybeans as their star ingredient. Yet, soy sauce lacks garlic as well as the unique sweet taste that hoisin is known for.
If you want to soften the garlicky flavor of hoisin just a little bit, give soy sauce a shot.
Everything from fried rice to Asian chicken dishes work well when soy sauce is used to zest it up.
Teriyaki Sauce

Our last ready-made swap is teriyaki sauce, which is the closest in terms of taste. Teriyaki sauce is made of soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, honey, and ginger, giving it a sharper edge than hoisin.
This suggestion is for those who love an even stronger flavor, and it shines best when you’re marinating fish or meat, stir-frying, or preparing chicken to be grilled. Yum!
🥢 Homemade Hoisin Sauce Substitutes
Here are a few ways you can make a sauce that will taste impressively similar to hoisin. The great thing about the following recipes is that they’re made with various ingredients. So, you’re bound to find something that you already have in your pantry.
Plus, you get to decide your favorite recipe based on how you want it to taste and you get to control its strength and tanginess. Everybody likes some control, right?
Without further ado, let’s dive in!
BBQ and Molasses Sauce
We know you could easily just use BBQ sauce on its own as a replacement to hoisin and call it a day. But if you want a more complex taste that inches closer to the unique, sticky sweetness of hoisin, why not go the extra mile?
By adding molasses into the equation, you get a richer consistency; which is what hoisin is all about. Now, to prepare this sauce, you’ll have to mix the following in a bowl:
- ¾ cup of BBQ sauce
- 3 tablespoons of molasses
- 1 ½ teaspoons of 5-spice powder
- 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
Garlic Teriyaki

Remember how we pointed out that teriyaki is probably the best hoisin sauce substitute because it has almost all of its ingredients? Well, instead of using this sauce all alone, why don’t we try to push it even closer to hoisin?
Here’s everything you’ll need to blend to get the desired results:
- 3 tablespoons of teriyaki sauce
- 2 tablespoons of vinegar
- 3 tablespoons of molasses
- ¾ cup of kidney beans (after draining and rinsing)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 teaspoons of 5-spice powder
Put all these ingredients in your blender and mix them up. If the consistency becomes too thick for your liking, you can add just a little bit of water to make it thinner.
Garlic and Prunes

If you don’t have teriyaki or BBQ sauce, well, it’s time to get a little creative. Since hoisin is basically garlic with some sticky, sweet taste, you could recreate its flavor using fruit, like prunes.
The following ingredients are all you’ll need to make that happen:
- 2 cloves of garlic
- ¾ cup of pitted prunes
- 1 ½ tablespoons of dry sherry
- 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 2 cups of water
Start by filling a pot with your two cups of water and adding the prunes, then let them come to a boil. Wait until the prunes become completely tender, turn off the heat and allow them to cool down.
Transfer the contents of your pot to a food processor, then add the rest of the ingredients and process them until smooth. Now, you can enjoy your homemade hoisin!
Mustard, Miso, Garlic, and Raisins
Here’s another delicious substitute if prunes aren’t available. Raisins also work as just be the right source for that sweet flavor.
Just remember that you’ll need to soak your raisins in water for an hour before using them in this recipe. Here are your ingredients:
- 1 cup of raisins
- 1 tablespoon of sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon of mustard
- 1 teaspoon of miso paste
- 2 cloves of garlic
- ½ teaspoon of red pepper powder
- 1 ¼ cups of water
Now that everything is ready, blend them all in a blender or a food processor and use the resulting sauce in marinades, stir-frys, and more.
Soy Sauce and Peanut Butter
We know that using peanut butter to make a tasty hoisin sauce sounds far-fetched. But once you give this recipe a try, it might end up being your favorite!
Peanut butter can help you mimic hoisin’s richly sweet flavor, and its consistency is just what you need to recreate the sauce’s thickness.
To prepare it, you need the following ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons of creamy peanut butter
- ¼ cup of soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons of sesame oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons of honey
- 1 ½ teaspoons of brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons of hot pepper sauce
- 2 teaspoons of white vinegar
- ⅛ teaspoon of black pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon of garlic powder
In a bowl, mix all these ingredients until the consistency is right. Then, you should be ready to use this sauce in anything from a seafood dish to grilled meat or chicken.
Black Bean and Plums
If you don’t have prunes, raisins, or even PB, you’re allowed to grab some plums to act as your fruity undertone.
To make this sauce, you’ll need the following:
- 2 large plums (chop them before adding)
- 3 tablespoons of black bean and garlic sauce
- 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 1 ½ teaspoons of sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar
- ¼ cup of packed brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon of 5-spice powder
- 2 tablespoons of water
Add the plums, brown sugar, and water to a saucepan. Then, boil until the plums become soft. After that, add the black bean and garlic sauce to the mix and transfer everything to a food processor when it’s fully cool.
In the food processor, pour soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil along with the 5-spice powder. Mix them all to perfection, and you should be done!
Final Thoughts
Finding the perfect substitute isn’t that tricky after all. Once you’ve taken a look at our suggestions and settled on a favorite, the rest should be a piece of cake!
A lot of things could help you recreate the equally sweet and savory taste, and you likely already have them in your kitchen cabinet.
Next time you are in a pinch in your pantry, check for replacements for your ingredients before running to the store.
- Five Spice Substitute
- Cilantro Substitute
- Parsley Substitute
- Green Chilis Substitute
- Italian Seasoning Substitute
- Mustard Seed Substitute
- Sriracha Sauce Substitute
- Cojita Cheese Substitute
So, are you ready to duplicate hoisin sauce’s unique and delicious taste at home?
Hi!
Ginny Collins is a passionate foodie and recipe creator of Savor and Savvy and Kitchenlaughter. Indoors she focuses on easy, quick recipes for busy families and kitchen basics. Outdoors, she focuses on backyard grilling and smoking to bring family and friends together. She is a lifelong learner who is always taking cooking classes on her travels overseas and stateside. Her work has been featured on MSN, Parade, Fox News, Yahoo, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and many local news outlets. She lives in Florida where you will find her outside on the water in her kayak, riding her bike on trails, and planning her next overseas adventure.



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