Seeking Suggestions: Substitutes for Tamarind in Pad Thai?

We have an unremitting and unapologetic love for pad thai. We’ve been having a lot of fun playing around with different recipes for making it at home.

One problem we keep running into, though: we have trouble finding tamarind paste where we live. Any suggestions for substitutes?

The taste of tamarind is completely unique. It’s that bright sour taste that lingers hauntingly in the background of a good pad thai and many other Southeast Asian dishes. Without it, pad thai just isn’t the same.

That said, it would be nice to have a quick-fix solution for those times when the pad thai craving hits and there’s no tamarind to be found. We’re wondering if another sweet-sour fruit like ripe mango, dried apricots or prunes, or even a splash of grapefruit juice might fool our taste buds for a little while. A few teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce might also work, since tamarind is one of the main ingredients in that condiment.

Any other ideas for tamarind substitutes?

(Image: Flickr member laughlin licensed under Creative Commons)

Comments (15)

Order it online. It'll last for months in your refrigerator.

http://importfood.com/ is great!

Brown sauce (HP sauce) is also made from tamarind. Don't know whether that is common where you live?
I agree with louiedog, by the way, it keeps forever. You can probably freeze it, too, in ice cube trays (never tried that though).

Pomegranate molasses should do the trick. If you can't find molasses you could boil down pom juice.

I had a similar issue not too long ago and used this as a substitute -
http://www.grouprecipes.com/49048/tamarind-paste-substitute.html

In a pinch, I've used no pulp orange juice or sweet lemon juice.

There is a traditional South Indian lentil soup made with tomatoes and tamarind but if you have really fresh tomatoes then you don't have to use the tamarind so tomatoes? You just need something to add that sour element - lemons could suffice as well.

My pad thai recipe does not include tamarind at all, but has white vinegar, sugar and a large amount of paprika, which I suspect are taking the tamarind's place.

There must be some sour element in any thai dish with fish sauce, in my experience. It's often lime juice or vinegar, but tamarind's a good option too.

In a pinch we've used Tamarind Soda in a can, stores well and can be used in most places Tamarind can (in dishes that can support the sugar). It's saved us several times!

When we run out of tamarind concentrate, a good substitute to bring up the acid/sour balance is a bit of fruit vinegar: fruity and sour. Just don't substitute the same amount as you would Tamarind because obviously it is much more sour! You could also just use extra lemon/lime. But really, there is no real way to approximate the taste of tamarind, you'll just get the necessary sourness.

I've always heard that you can approximate the flavor by mixing lime juice and brown sugar. That said, it's really easy to find on the Internet and the dried blocks of pulp keep forever.

herzsprung, I portion mine out in ice cube trays and freeze it. It does indeed keep forever... or at least a few years.

I've used a pretty generic tamarind chutney I found in the international isle, but I bought a bunch from Amazon cheap. Keeps forever.

Besides the Asian/Indian (technically India is part of Asia, so this I'm being redundant, but just in case) grocers, you can sometimes find tamarind at the Mexican/Latino markets. Cheap. I find it hard to believe that there isn't *somewhere* nearby with tamarind paste.