What to use instead of rice vinegar
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Mild acid seasoning cooked rice
At roughly 4 percent acidity it seasons without dominating, and the sugar and salt that go with it draw a little moisture off the grains so the rice holds together and shines.
Distilled white vinegar, thinnedRan out
3 tbsp white vinegar + 1 tbsp water per 1/4 cup rice vinegar
Cleaner and harsher on the nose. Once the sugar and salt go in, close enough that most people cannot pick it out.
Apple cider vinegarRan out
1:1 by volume, plus 1/4 tsp extra sugar per tbsp
Fruitier and it tints the rice faintly amber. The apple note shows through on plain sushi rice.
Champagne or white wine vinegar, thinnedRan out
3 tbsp + 1 tbsp water per 1/4 cup rice vinegar
Slightly grapey and more perfumed. The closest of the wine vinegars to the softness of rice vinegar.
What doesn't work: Balsamic or red wine vinegar. Both are far more tannic and assertive, and both stain the rice brown or pink. Onigiri made with either tastes like it has been dressed as a salad.
The sour half of a sweet-and-sour sauce
It has to hold its acidity through boiling and against a lot of sugar, which is why a delicate acid like lemon disappears here.
Distilled white vinegarRan out
3/4 the volume
Sharper and more aggressive, so pull it back a quarter. It survives reduction better than rice vinegar does.
Apple cider vinegarRan out
1:1 by volume
Fruity and slightly sweet already, which suits a sweet-and-sour pork. It darkens the sauce a shade.
Chinkiang black vinegarRan out
1/2 the volume
Malty, dark and much deeper, so half is plenty. The sauce goes brown-black, which is right for guo bao rou and wrong for a bright red sweet-and-sour.
Filipino cane or coconut vinegarRan out
1:1 by volume
Softer and slightly sweet with a faint funk. Behaves almost exactly like rice vinegar under heat.
What doesn't work: Balsamic. It is already sweet and thick with syrup, so adding it to a sauce that is mostly sugar leaves nothing sharp to balance it. The sauce goes flat-sweet and muddy brown, and the general tso coating turns sticky rather than glossy.
Acid in a cold noodle sauce or a dipping sauce
Raw and uncooked, so its own aroma is part of the flavour rather than something that boils off.
Chinkiang black vinegarRan out
1/2 the volume, then taste
Deep and malty, closer to a mild balsamic. It is the traditional choice for a scallion pancake dip and it darkens the sauce.
PonzuRan out
1:1 by volume, then cut the soy sauce in the recipe by half
Brings soy, dashi and citrus with the acid. Saltier and much more complex, so it takes the sauce over unless you rebalance.
Lemon juiceRan out
1:1 by volume
Reads as citrus rather than vinegar and it fades within a couple of hours in the fridge. Fine in a bibim sauce eaten straight away.
What doesn't work: Seasoned rice vinegar used measure-for-measure where the recipe calls for plain. It already carries sugar and salt, so a cold noodle sauce built on it comes out sweet and over-salted before you have added anything else.