Cooking with Vinegar

Apple cider vinegar has probably become my most-used vinegar, but not because I decided it was the “best” vinegar.

It came from the way my cooking changed.

For a while, I was trying to avoid adding processed white sugar wherever I could. I found myself reaching for apple cider vinegar because, compared with something like plain white vinegar, I enjoyed its fruitier, slightly sweeter character. It gave me acidity without everything tasting quite as sharp.

As I experimented more, I realised that simply removing sugar could change more than sweetness.

Sweet ingredients can help with balance, caramelisation and browning, particularly in marinades and glazes. That’s eventually part of what led me towards experimenting with honey as an ingredient too.

These days I’m less interested in simply removing ingredients and more interested in understanding what they’re actually doing.

Vinegar is a good example.

Why Add Vinegar?

Vinegar obviously brings acidity, but that’s only part of why I use it.

Acidity can brighten a dish, cut through rich or fatty food and balance sweetness and saltiness. It can turn something that tastes heavy or flat into something much fresher.

That’s why you’ll find vinegar throughout my cooking in things like:

• Pickles
• Salad dressings
• Marinades
• Dipping sauces
• Relishes
• Sauces

But different vinegars don’t taste the same.

Just like I’ve started experimenting with different honeys for their floral character, I’m becoming more interested in choosing vinegar for the flavour it brings rather than treating all vinegar as interchangeable.

My Default: Apple Cider Vinegar

Apple cider vinegar, or ACV, is the vinegar you’ll probably see most often in my recipes.

I originally gravitated towards it while trying to reduce the amount of refined white sugar I was adding to food. I liked that it had a fruitier, rounder flavour than plain white vinegar and didn’t seem quite as aggressively acidic in the finished dish.

It became particularly useful in my pickles, dressings and sauces.

I still use it regularly today, but my reason for using it has changed.

I’m no longer choosing ACV because I think every recipe needs to avoid sugar. I use it when I actually want the flavour of apple cider vinegar.

If another vinegar makes more sense, I’ll use that instead.

Vinegar Isn’t Just Sour

This is something I’ve increasingly realised as I’ve become more comfortable substituting ingredients.

White vinegar, apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar and Chinese black vinegar can all provide acidity, but they bring very different flavours with them.

Some are clean and sharp.

Some are fruity.

Some are slightly sweet.

Some are deep, malty or almost caramel-like.

That means changing the vinegar can subtly change the personality of an entire dish.

Rather than asking:

“Which vinegar am I supposed to use?”

I’m increasingly asking:

“What kind of acidity would work best here?”

Vinegars I’m Using

Apple Cider Vinegar

This is currently my everyday vinegar and the one I’ve experimented with the most.

I like its combination of acidity and fruitiness, particularly when I’m making something where plain white vinegar might feel too sharp.

I use it in: pickles, salad dressings, tomato relish, sauces and marinades.

Character: fruity, tangy and relatively rounded.

White Vinegar

White vinegar gives me acidity without bringing much additional flavour.

That’s useful when I want something sharp and clean, but it’s not usually my first choice when the vinegar itself forms an important part of the flavour.

Character: clean, direct and sharp.

Rice Vinegar

Rice vinegar makes sense to me when I want gentler acidity, particularly in Asian-inspired dressings, sauces and pickles.

As I use it more, I’ll add notes here about when I prefer it over ACV.

Character: mild and relatively delicate.

Red Wine Vinegar

This is something I want to explore more in Mediterranean-style salads, marinades and sauces.

It has a different fruitiness to ACV and should work particularly well with olive oil, herbs, tomato and grilled meats.

Character: tangy, fruity and more robust.

Balsamic Vinegar

Balsamic is almost a different category of ingredient because sweetness and deeper cooked flavours can be such a prominent part of it.

Rather than using it simply to make something sour, I’d choose it when I actually want that darker, sweeter character.

Character: sweet, rich and complex.

Chinese Black Vinegar

This is another vinegar I want to explore much more.

Its darker, malty character makes it very different from the clean acidity of white vinegar or the fruitiness of ACV.

Character: dark, malty, savoury and aromatic.

Substituting Vinegar

You usually don’t need to abandon a recipe because you don’t have the exact vinegar I’ve used.

For many of my recipes, another vinegar can work. The important thing is understanding that the finished flavour may change.

If my recipe uses	First substitute I’d try	What to expect
Apple Cider Vinegar	Rice vinegar or red wine vinegar	Rice vinegar will be gentler; red wine vinegar more robust
White Vinegar	Apple cider vinegar	More fruitiness and flavour
Rice Vinegar	Apple cider vinegar	Slightly fruitier and potentially more assertive
Red Wine Vinegar	Apple cider vinegar	Softer fruit character
Balsamic Vinegar	Red wine vinegar + a little honey	More acidity and less natural sweetness
Chinese Black Vinegar	Balsamic or rice vinegar depending on the dish	Neither is a true replacement; choose based on whether depth or delicacy matters more

These aren’t exact equivalents.

If vinegar is a major component of the recipe, start with slightly less of the substitute, taste it and adjust.

Acid and Sweetness

One of the biggest changes in my cooking has been learning not to think about sour and sweet separately.

Sometimes a sauce isn’t “too sour” because it contains too much vinegar. It may simply need something to balance it.

Likewise, adding sweetness isn’t necessarily about making a dish taste sweet.

My early response was often to omit sugar altogether. Eventually I realised that sweetness can balance acidity, salt, chilli and bitterness, while sugars can also contribute to browning and caramelisation during cooking.

That’s one reason honey started appearing more often in my cooking.

Now I might deliberately combine something like apple cider vinegar + honey, not because either ingredient is automatically better than white vinegar or sugar, but because I want the particular balance and flavours they bring.

An Ongoing Experiment

Like my honey guide, this page isn’t supposed to be a definitive guide to vinegar.

It’s a record of how I use it.

Apple cider vinegar is currently my default because it’s what I’ve cooked with most and I know how it behaves in my recipes. But that doesn’t mean it will always be the best choice.

As I cook with more vinegars, I’ll keep updating this page with what I’ve tried, where substitutions worked and, just as importantly, where they didn’t.

The more I cook, the less interested I am in finding one “correct” ingredient.

I’m much more interested in understanding what an ingredient contributes and then deciding whether that’s what I want in the dish.