Have you ever been in the middle of making a recipe that calls for orange zest and realized you don’t have any on hand? Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us!
While orange zest adds a fantastic citrusy flavor to any dish, there are several substitutes you can use to achieve a similar taste. Whether you’re looking to switch things up or simply out of oranges, we’ve got you covered in this blog post.
We’ll explore some of the best orange zest substitutes and share some tips on how to use them in your cooking and baking. So let’s dive in and discover some delicious alternatives to orange zest!
Top 6 Substitutes For Orange Zest
1. Lemon Zest
Lemon zest is the best choice to substitute for orange zest. It is a convenient, affordable, and complimentary seasoning for your dish. It can be made by trimming some lemons, which are so easy to buy at a low price in any market.
Breaking down the nutrition facts, lemon zest contains many useful nutrients and minerals. In a 6g serving, there are only 2.8 kCal, 0g fat, 0g cholesterol, and 13% vitamin C. We recommend this seasoning because it could provide mostly helpful elements to your body.
In terms of taste, the lemon zest can provide the same sourness as the zest of orange. Not to mention, the lemon and orange have so many similarities in elements, so the lemon zest can work well with savory and sweet dishes, just like the zested orange. Briefly, you can use lemon zest in the exact proportion as the orange zest.
2. Fruit Juice – Good For Ladies
Fruit juice is also a viable alternative for orange zest that to be introduced on the list. Considering that it is extracted from fresh fruit, the substitution is dewy and mouthwatering. Therefore, it is appropriate for pre-cooking steps as a marinade.
The juice will retain the flavor the fruit is made of so if you want an acidic seasoning like the orange zest, we recommend you choose citrus ones as lime, lemon, etc. to have the best replacement.
The acerbity level varies depending on the fruit, so it’s better to drop a tablespoon at first. Carefully tasting your food and adjusting until your food reaches the desired taste.
Evaluating the nutrition elements, it can be found that juice made from any fruit is good for health. Generally, there is a high percentage of vitamin C, A, B, and D in this mixture, as well as sugar and potassium.
One point to highlight is that it contains no fat, making it the right weight loss diet option.
However, because the juice is a liquid, it may not be ideal for all the cases. For instance, when it comes to smoking or baking, the machine specialized for the job cannot work with liquid ingredients, so you have to replace the fruit juice with other substitutes.
3. Fruit Concentrate – New Thing To Try
Fruit concentrate is a suitable replacement for orange zest which is often mistaken as fruit juice. However, this phrase is the term used for factory-produced, condensed, preservatives-contained juice. The main elements of this seasoning are fruit juice, sugar, and hygienic preserver.
The fruit concentrate is made from fruit extracted and sweetener, so it retains the original flavor of fruit and the sugariness. For example, the orange concentrate has the citrusy bitterness with the slight herb-alike aroma, or the apple concentrate tastes sharply acidic sugary.
Therefore, the fruit concentrate works well in making mixes such as cocktails, salads, etc. Also, just by hearing the name “concentrate”, we can imagine the condensed flavor of it, right? So, We recommend you to add it sparingly to your food. For 1 part of orange zest, just take ¾ portion of concentrate.
4. Vinegar – Slight and Tart Flavor
Vinegar is another substitution for orange zest. It is the most common seasoning on this list. With the slight smell and moderate tartness, it has been long applied in cuisine worldwide.
Specifically, it can be used in almost any recipe without resulting in any flavor clash.
There are four primary resources to extract this marinade: beverages, fruit, grains, and fermentations. The seasoning from each origin has different tastes and nutrition elements, e.g., the vinegar made from grains are more acidic than those produced from fermentations.
Vinegar is the best seasoning for weight loss diet because there isn’t any harmful fat and cholesterol. Breaking down the nutrition facts, we can see that there are only 18 kCal and 6mg Calcium, making it the right menu for everyone.
In terms of taste, the acerbity level in vinegar is considered to be higher than the orange zest. We suggest you use just 1/2 vinegar tablespoon for a tablespoon of orange zest.
However, there is just one point to be aware before cooking is that vinegar may not be an excellent complement for sweet-flavored dishes because it is purely sour with a robust and bizarre smell.
5. Orange Peel
You might confuse why orange peel is considered an orange zest substitute. Because right after seeing the title “orange peel” because if you have oranges to peel, that means you aren’t running out of oranges to make zest, so you don’t have to find a substitute, right?
The answer for you is: we introduce the orange peel in this list, not for replacement purposes, but because the orange peel can provide an extremely similar taste but a bit juicier than the zest.
To make orange peel, you need some oranges, a knife, and some technique to shave the orange exterior without cutting yourself. Sounds easy, right? It really is.
What differentiates orange peel from the zest is that the peel mixture contains the zest and the pith, so its taste will retain the so-sour, so-bitter of the orange “skin” and the juicy, half-sweet, half-sour of the core. To add-in, the pith of an orange comprises nutritions, unlike the zest.
However, the orange peel isn’t likely to substitute the zest in every dish. The orange peel is half-liquid and watery because of the juice, making it hard to use in some recipes that require no liquid at all. We must be aware of using peel mixture in just some proper menus.
Evaluating the nutrition facts, it can be found that orange peel is such a great and healthy choice for everyone. On the 100g serving, there is 97 kCal with 1.7kCal from fat but more than 136 vitamin C and 161 mg Calcium. With many minerals and vitamins, the orange peel is an all-around choice for any person.
6. Pure Extracts – Last Thing
Pure extracts is a proper orange zest substitution. They are made from oil, fruit juice, water, and other food preservatives. They will provide the fresh, citrusy, juicy flavor from fruit
The nutrition breakdown of the extract is quite similar to juice because of the similarity in origin: both were extracted from the fruit and blended in water.
However, the extract provides a much stronger taste than the pure juice. So, we recommend you use a little drop of extract per usage, then taste the dish and adjust the taste until you are satisfied.
Pure extracts can be used as a substitution for orange zest in baking, making sweets and liquors. However, because of the liquid form, this seasoning is inapplicable for recipes requiring solid ingredients only.
FAQs
Which orange extract substitution is the easiest to make?
Most of the orange zest alternatives mentioned above are easy to find. However, if we are to select the most effortless in terms of making among those, it must be lemon zest.
To make lemon zest for orange zest supplements, you need a peeler or a knife and some lemons. Then, carefully trim the lemons until the zest produced is enough to use.
Which orange extract substitute is the most delicious?
The tastiness depends on each person’s flavor, so it could be subjective to point out the best one.
Personally, based on our preference, we will choose the fruit juice beyond other substitutes for orange zest because it is juicy and sour. Plus, the smell coming from the juice is fresh and citrusy.
