Gochujang Substitute: 8 Swaps and What Each One Misses

You’re halfway through a recipe when you find the tub empty, or you never had one because the nearest Korean grocery store is two hours away. A gochujang substitute is the workaround, and the honest answer is that no single bottle in a Western pantry does the job alone. Gochujang (고추장) does five jobs at once (heat, sweetness, salt and savoriness, acidity and body), so replacing it means putting two or three ingredients back together in the right order.

Table of Contents

1. What Is a Gochujang Substitute?
2. Why Gochujang Is Hard to Replace: The Five Jobs One Jar Does
3. The Best Gochujang Substitutes You Can Mix at Home
4. How Non-Korean Chili Pastes Compare
5. Quick-Reference Substitution Chart
6. How to Mix a Gochujang Substitute at Home
7. Which Substitute Fits Which Korean Dish?
8. Why No Blend Fully Replaces Gochujang
9. Frequently Asked Questions
10. Keep a Real Jar When You Can Get One

What Is a Gochujang Substitute?

A gochujang substitute is a blend, not an ingredient. It has to be assembled: something savory and fermented, something sweet, something hot and red, something sour. Swap in one item and the gap shows immediately, usually as a sauce that tastes sharp and flat at once.

One distinction settles most of the confusion. Gochujang is a fermented paste and gochugaru (고춧가루) is dried chili powder; a gochujang substitute has to replace the paste, not the powder. If your recipe wants a red powder, you want substitutes for gochugaru, the chili powder instead, and our comparison of how gochujang and gochugaru differ sorts out which one a recipe means.

The reverse question comes up just as often, and the answer is no: you can’t turn chili powder into gochujang by adding water. The sweetness and depth come from fermenting saccharified grain. For the full picture of the paste you are replacing, start with what gochujang actually is.

Why Gochujang Is Hard to Replace: The Five Jobs One Jar Does

Gochujang is hard to replace because one jar does five measurable jobs at once: heat, saccharified sweetness, salt and savoriness, acidity and body, each one written into a standard or a published analysis.

Gochujang belongs to jang (장), the family of Korean fermented sauces that also includes soybean paste and soy sauce; its cultural story is in our guide to the history and culture of gochujang.

The Codex Alimentarius regional standard for gochujang sets an order of operations: grain starch is saccharified with powdered malt or by cultivating Aspergillus in grain; salt goes into that saccharified material and the mixture is fermented and aged; the red pepper powder can go in before or after that fermentation. The basic ingredients it names are grains, red pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) powder, salt and potable water. Powdered meju (메주) — blocks of fermented soybean — is an optional ingredient.

Gochujang’s Codex regional standard sets capsaicin at 10.0 ppm or more, crude protein at 4.0% or more, and moisture at 55.0% or less. It also names the sensory target: a hot and savory taste that may read somewhat sweet and somewhat salty, a red or dark red color from the pepper, and an appropriate level of viscosity.

Axis	What gochujang delivers	Where the figure comes from
Heat	Capsaicin of 10.0 ppm (w/w) or more	Codex standard, quality factors
Sweetness	Sugar produced by saccharifying grain starch; grain syrup and malt among the ingredients makers actually use	Codex standard (process); analysis of 35 Korean-made products (ingredients)
Salt and savoriness	Crude protein of 4.0% (w/w) or more; salinity measured at 3.44–12.68%	Codex standard; analysis of 35 Korean-made products
Acidity	pH 3.57–4.98	Analysis of 35 Korean-made products
Body	"An appropriate level of viscosity"	Codex standard, quality factors

That acidity line is the easy one to skip. Measured across 35 Korean-made products, gochujang runs pH 3.57 to 4.98. It is why a blend of soybean paste, syrup and chili can be right in every other way and still land flat; a teaspoon of vinegar fixes more than another spoonful of chili.

The soybean pastes people reach for first are governed by a different document, and the difference is structural. Korean fermented soybean paste falls under a separate Codex regional standard (CODEX STAN 298R-2009), which defines a food whose essential ingredient is soybean, made by fermenting boiled or steamed beans and then mixing them with salt or brine. That route has no saccharification step, and its quality factors are built around nitrogen — there is no capsaicin item in it at all. Sugars and starch syrup do appear on its optional-ingredient list, so the point is not that soybean paste is never sweet; it is that sweetness is not built into how it is made. Our guide to telling the three Korean pastes apart settles which is which.

One caution before the ratios. A survey of 35 Korean gochujang makers found salinity from 3.44% to 12.68% across products; in the two samples at the extremes of redness, red pepper powder made up 19% and 34%. No two tubs taste alike and home batches vary by family, so every ratio below is a starting point to taste against.

The Best Gochujang Substitutes You Can Mix at Home

Doenjang with gochugaru and rice syrup comes closest, then white miso with gochugaru and honey, Korean soy sauce with sugar and gochugaru, and gochugaru with rice syrup alone. Stir them together cold unless a recipe says otherwise.

1. Doenjang + gochugaru + rice syrup — best overall substitute

Make this one if you can get Korean ingredients at all. Doenjang (된장), Korea’s fermented soybean paste supplies fermented savoriness and most of the salt, gochugaru, Korean red pepper powder supplies heat and the red color the Codex standard ties to the pepper, and rice syrup carries the sweetness saccharification would otherwise have produced.

Doenjang is coarser and more assertive than gochujang, so start with less than you think and let the syrup round it out. Add vinegar last, once the color is right.

2. White miso + gochugaru + honey — best when you can’t get doenjang

Miso is the realistic answer if your store has a Japanese aisle but no Korean one. Korean doenjang and Japanese miso are made by different routes, and how doenjang compares with Japanese miso is its own subject; here the useful fact is that miso works as a savory base, not a straight swap, since it brings neither capsaicin nor acidity.

Use white miso rather than a dark one, and be generous with the honey.

3. Korean soy sauce + sugar + gochugaru — best for marinades and thin sauces

Some recipes want gochujang dissolved into a marinade or a glaze. In that case the paste’s body does no useful work, and ganjang (간장), Korean soy sauce with sugar and chili powder gets there faster and mixes more evenly.

The trade-off is salt: soy sauce salts far faster than a paste, so hold back the recipe’s other salt until you’ve tasted.

4. Gochugaru + rice syrup on their own — best where other ingredients carry the umami

The two-ingredient version is honest about what it does. You get heat, red color and sweetness roughly in the right register, and no fermented depth. It works where other ingredients already carry umami: a stew built on anchovy stock, a marinade heavy with garlic. It falls apart wherever the paste was the backbone.

How Non-Korean Chili Pastes Compare

If the pantry holds no Korean or Japanese products, the question becomes which chili product to build on. Held up to the five axes above, the four usual candidates share the same gaps: none is a fermented soybean product, and none is built on saccharified grain.

Pantry stand-in	Heat and red color	What it misses
Sriracha	Yes	Fermented soybean umami, saccharified sweetness, thick body
Sambal oelek	Yes	Fermented soybean umami, saccharified sweetness, thick body
Harissa	Yes	Fermented soybean umami, saccharified sweetness, thick body
Tomato paste	Color only, no heat	Fermented soybean umami, saccharified sweetness, thick body

The fix is the same in the three chili rows: add a soybean paste for savory depth, a syrup for sweetness, and cook the mixture down until it holds its shape on a spoon. Tomato paste is the odd one out: it gives color without heat and works only in combination.

Heat levels vary enormously across chili products, and Korean chili powder covers a wide range of its own; we cover that in how spicy gochugaru actually is rather than here. The rule that matters is to add heat last and in stages, because you can’t take it back out.

Quick-Reference Substitution Chart

Every quantity in this guide is a starting point Taste Korean Food derived to match gochujang’s measured flavor axes. These are not published conversion ratios — none appears in the Codex standards, PubMed or Crossref — so mix, taste and adjust before the sauce goes near a pan.

Gochujang paste substitute (per 1 tbsp gochujang)	Starting amounts	Best for	What it misses
Doenjang + gochugaru + rice syrup	2 tsp doenjang + 1 tsp gochugaru + 1 tsp rice syrup, vinegar to finish	Almost everything	Nothing structural; depth is shallower
White miso + gochugaru + honey	2 tsp white miso + 1 tsp gochugaru + 1 tsp honey	No doenjang on hand	Acidity; a different fermented character
Korean soy sauce + sugar + gochugaru	1 tsp soy sauce + 1 tsp sugar + 1 tsp gochugaru	Marinades, glazes	Body; salts much faster
Gochugaru + rice syrup	1 tsp gochugaru + 1 tsp rice syrup	Stews with their own umami	Fermented depth entirely
Sriracha	1 tbsp, then reduce	Fast weeknight heat	Savoriness, sweetness, body
Sambal oelek	2 tsp + 1 tsp syrup	Heat-forward dishes	Savoriness, sweetness
Harissa	2 tsp + 1 tsp syrup	Grilled and roasted food	Savoriness, sweetness
Tomato paste + chili	2 tsp tomato paste + ½ tsp chili powder	When no chili paste is on hand	Savoriness and sweetness

Ssamjang (쌈장) is already a seasoned blend with its own purpose, so it needs an article instead of a ratio; we worked through whether ssamjang can stand in for gochujang separately.

How to Mix a Gochujang Substitute at Home

Doenjang or white miso, syrup, gochugaru and vinegar make about four tablespoons and cover the same flavor axes the Codex standard and the published analyses describe. The syrup is jocheong (조청), Korean grain syrup, though honey works. No home blend reproduces gochujang’s measured composition: these proportions are set by volume in a mixing bowl, not by the weight ratios a fermenting crock produces.

Ingredient	Amount	Axis it covers
Doenjang or white miso	2 tbsp	Savoriness, protein, salt
Jocheong or honey	1 tbsp	Saccharified sweetness
Gochugaru	1 tbsp	Heat and color
Rice vinegar	1 tsp	Acidity
Water	As needed, a teaspoon at a time	Body

1. Stir the paste and syrup together until the mixture is uniform and glossy.
2. Add the chili powder and let it sit two or three minutes; the powder needs a moment to hydrate before you can judge color or heat.
3. Adjust one axis at a time: more gochugaru for heat, syrup in half-teaspoons for sweetness, a few drops of vinegar for brightness, less water and a longer rest for body.
4. Let the blend sit ten minutes before judging it; it tastes noticeably sharper right after mixing than once the chili has softened into the paste.

Don’t swap in chili powder or cayenne for gochugaru one-for-one, because commercial Korean chili powders vary enormously in capsaicinoid content, so a spoon of one is not a spoon of another. Why chili powder isn’t the same as gochugaru explains the difference.

Which Substitute Fits Which Korean Dish?

Tteokbokki needs the doenjang blend, bibimbap takes any of them, and marinades, glazes and bottled gochujang sauce take the thin soy-sauce blend. Difficulty depends almost entirely on how much of a dish’s identity was sitting in the paste.

Tteokbokki

The hardest case. In spicy tteokbokki (떡볶이) the sauce is the dish. Its clinging body comes from the paste, while the sweetness is shared with the sugar the recipe already adds. Mix the doenjang blend thicker than feels right and reduce it longer than the recipe says. For a sense of the target, Myeongdong’s 45-year-old tteokbokki counter is a benchmark many Koreans measure against.

Bibimbap

The most forgiving dish here. The paste is a condiment stirred in at the table, so other flavors — sesame oil, vegetables, egg — work alongside it. Even the two-ingredient version holds up. Our bibimbap made with yak-gochujang (약고추장) shows how much seasoning the bowl needs.

Marinades and grilled dishes

Marinades sit in the middle. Sugar matters more than usual because it governs how the surface caramelizes, so keep the syrup even if you cut something else. A thinner soy-based blend often beats a thick one because it coats evenly — the logic behind a gochujang shrimp marinade.

Gochujang sauce substitute: when the recipe means the bottle, not the tub

Reach for the thin soy-based blend, loosened with water: bottled gochujang sauce is usually sold thinner and sweeter than the paste, ready to pour. Once you have real gochujang again, our guide to ways to use gochujang sauces covers the other direction.

Why No Blend Fully Replaces Gochujang

No blend fully replaces gochujang, and better ratios won’t change that. The Codex standard puts saccharification first and fermentation second, and a mixing bowl cannot perform either step. What a substitute is missing is time acting through enzymes.

During fermentation, Bacillus species produce proteases and amylases; the amylases break starch into glucose and maltose, and the proteases free the amino acids that read as savory. Published measurements put reducing sugar at 17.4% to 31.1% in finished gochujang, with amino-type nitrogen roughly 1.6 times higher in most batches after fermentation. A substitute imitates the products of that process by adding syrup and soybean paste; it does not run the process. Our piece on the fermentation science behind gochujang goes deeper into what those organisms do.

That is also why substitutes come closer in cooked dishes than in raw ones. Heat, aromatics and stock supply some of the complexity fermentation would have contributed; a spoonful eaten straight has no such cover.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best substitute for gochujang?

The closest gochujang substitute we mix is two parts Korean fermented soybean paste to one part rice syrup and one part Korean chili powder, with a teaspoon of rice vinegar for acidity. No single jar replaces the paste, whether you see it spelled gochujang or kochujang, because its sweetness comes from fermented grain.

Can I use sriracha instead of gochujang?

Sriracha can stand in for gochujang when a dish mainly needs heat and red color, but it leaves two gaps: fermented soybean umami and the thick body of a paste. Add a spoonful of miso or soy sauce plus a little syrup, then reduce the sauce longer to make up the thickness.

Is there a gochujang substitute without soy or gluten?

Chili powder, rice syrup, salt and rice vinegar cover heat, sweetness, salt and acidity without any soybean product, leaving the fermented savoriness and the body uncovered. Gochujang itself isn’t automatically free of either: the Codex standard lists fish sauce, seafood extract and fermented wheat protein among permitted optional ingredients, so read the tub.

Will a gochujang substitute work in tteokbokki and bibimbap?

Yes, with adjustment. Bibimbap is the most forgiving, because the paste is a condiment among several strong flavors. Tteokbokki is the hardest: the sauce’s body comes from the paste, so mix your blend thick and reduce it until it clings.

Keep a Real Jar When You Can Get One

Substitutes solve a supply problem; they do not improve on the original. If a Korean market or an online Korean grocery is within reach, one tub ends the question. What to look for on a gochujang label helps you pick one, and how long an open tub of gochujang keeps explains why one purchase lasts far longer than people expect. For what fermentation contributes beyond flavor, our piece on gochujang’s nutrition and functional effects takes that up separately.

Until then, mix the doenjang blend, keep it in a jar in the fridge, and taste it against the recipe rather than your memory of the real thing. Share this guide with anyone who has stood in a supermarket aisle looking for a red tub that wasn’t there.