Barberry Substitutes for Zereshk Polow, Stuffings and Salads

Making zereshk polow and the barberries ran out? Unsweetened dried cranberries are your closest swap: America’s Test Kitchen says barberries taste a lot like unsweetened dried cranberries, just smaller.¹ Beyond polow, Iranian cooks also put barberries in soups, other rice dishes and chicken stuffing.² Dried sour cherries suit a stuffing, lemon-soaked currants a salad, and sumac covers the sourness when the fruit itself doesn’t matter.

Quick answer

How the ratios on this page are labeled

Every ratio carries one of four labels.

• Computed: based on a measurable physical relationship.
• Attributed: a named source publishes this ratio. We quote it as theirs.
• Disputed: named sources give different answers to the same swap. You get each one, side by side.
• Method: our starting point, based on how the two compare. Taste and adjust.

If barberries are tart jewels in rice or grains

Unsweetened dried cranberries

This is the closest match. ATK says barberries taste a lot like unsweetened dried cranberries, and that barberries are smaller, closer to currants in size, so they spread through a dish more easily.¹ Food writer Beth Lee also suggests cranberries, chopped smaller if size matters.³

The catch: most dried cranberries are sweetened, which defeats the whole point of barberries. Look for unsweetened ones. If sweetened is all you can find, cut back any sugar the recipe adds. Many zereshk polow recipes already sweeten the berries. Nadia Sajadi’s sautés a cup of dried barberries in butter, then adds 2 tablespoons of sugar with saffron water.⁴ With sweetened cranberries, you can skip that sugar.

Ratio (Method): Use the same volume of chopped, unsweetened dried cranberries as barberries, and taste.

How to use them. Treat them like barberries. ATK suggests plumping barberries in hot water before adding them to rice, grain dishes or stuffing,¹ and Sajadi’s recipe rinses them and sautés them briefly in butter.⁴ Both steps work for cranberries too, though sweetened ones can scorch faster.

If barberries are tart fruit in a stuffing, braise or pilaf

Dried sour cherries

Lee suggests chopped dried sour cherries.³ They’re fleshier, darker and fruitier than barberries, so they suit braises and chicken stuffings (where barberries are traditional too) better than a delicate rice garnish. We didn’t find a source on their acid content, so we can’t tell you how close their sourness is.

Ratio (Method): Use the same volume, chopped to about barberry size, and taste. Check the label for added sugar.

If barberries are small fruit scattered through a salad

Currants soaked in lemon juice

Currants are a good size match, but they’re sweet, not sour, so they need acid. Lee passes along Yotam Ottolenghi’s tip: soak the currants in some lemon juice.³ We only have it secondhand from Lee and couldn’t find Ottolenghi’s own text.

Ratio (Method): The tip doesn’t come with amounts. Start with the same volume of currants as barberries, add just enough lemon juice to moisten them, and leave them for about 15 minutes. Then drain and taste. That soaking time is just a starting point.

If you need sourness without whole fruit

Sumac

If the fruit itself doesn’t matter, as in a soup or a finishing sprinkle, sumac gives a similar sharp sourness, and it shares its main acid with ripe barberries.⁵⁶ It’s tart and sour with slightly astringent overtones. The catch: it’s a powder, so you lose the chewy pieces and the jewel-like look, and ground sumac is often mixed with salt.⁷

Ratio (Method): It isn’t like for like. Sprinkle a little over the finished dish, or stir a pinch into a soup near the end, and taste.

What isn’t known

• We only found Ottolenghi’s currant tip as reported by another writer.
• Goji berries and rose hips sometimes get suggested as substitutes. We found no credible source comparing either with barberries, so we haven’t ranked them.

Related

• Barberry
• Sumac, cooking with sumac and sumac substitutes
• Saffron and advieh, two other ingredients of Persian cooking
• Anardana substitutes, for another tart dried fruit
• Cranberry sauce spices