Sorrel Substitute: Best Swaps by Dish

Out of sorrel? Your best bet is usually spinach plus a squeeze of lemon: a leaf for body and an acid for the tang. The forager and food writer Hank Shaw puts sorrel neatly: “it tastes like lemonade in a leaf.”¹ No other common green is that sour, so you’ll usually be pairing two things to stand in for it. In a salad, young arugula with a lemony dressing brings some punch, and when you only need the sourness, lemon juice or a sprinkle of sumac will do.

Quick answer

What sorrel is doing	Best substitute	Starting amount, per 1 cup sorrel leaves	Treatment
Melting into a sauce for fish or eggs	Spinach plus lemon juice	1 cup spinach + 1 tsp lemon juice, then taste	Method
The base of a creamed or puréed soup	Spinach plus lemon juice	1 cup spinach + 1 tsp lemon juice, then taste	Method
A sour leaf in a salad	Young arugula or spinach, with a lemony dressing	1 cup	Method
Just the sourness	Lemon juice, or sumac to finish	Add a little at a time	Method

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.

What you are replacing

Researchers who measured two cultivars of garden sorrel in New Zealand put its sour taste down to its high oxalate content. They found 273.0 to 953.8 mg of total oxalate per 100 g in the leaves, with more in bigger, more mature leaves than in smaller ones.² So sorrel’s sharpness varies from bunch to bunch, and any substitute amount can only be a starting point.

Cooked, sorrel changes completely. Shaw notes that it “will cook down a lot and turn Army green” as it melts.¹ That melting is why it suits sauces and soups, and it’s one place a substitute will differ. Spinach softens but keeps more of its shape and color.

If sorrel is melting into a sauce

Sauces and omelets are among sorrel’s main uses.³ A sorrel sauce is usually leaves stirred into butter or cream until they collapse, served with fish or eggs.

1. Spinach plus lemon juice

The recipe writer Katie Webster says that if you can’t find sorrel, you can use spinach and a little lemon juice, and notes that fresh spinach can taste a bit acidic too.⁴ The spinach gives you the green leaf and soft texture. The lemon gives you the sourness.

Ratio (Method): Start with an equal volume of spinach leaves and about 1 teaspoon of lemon juice per cup of leaves, added at the end. Taste, then add more lemon a few drops at a time.

2. Spinach plus lemon zest

Ratio (Method): If the sauce is rich with cream or butter, grated lemon zest adds a bright, sour-smelling note with less liquid. Start with about 1/2 teaspoon of zest per cup of spinach, plus a smaller squeeze of juice.

If sorrel is the base of a soup

Sorrel is the main ingredient of creamed sorrel soup.³ The same spinach-plus-acid approach works here. Add the acid after cooking so its brightness doesn’t dull.

Ratio (Method): Use an equal volume of spinach and start with about 1 teaspoon of lemon juice per cup of leaves, then adjust once the soup is seasoned.

Rhubarb, for a tart note

Rhubarb stalks add tartness, and NDSU Extension describes rhubarb as bringing “lots of tart flavor” to recipes. It’s not the same acid as sorrel’s, though. NDSU says the stalks naturally contain only a very small amount of oxalic acid, while the leaves are loaded with it. Use the stalks only. NDSU’s advice is to remove and discard the leaves and not eat them.⁵

Ratio (Method): Add a few thin slices of rhubarb stalk to the soup with the greens, simmer until soft, purée, and taste. Rhubarb has no leafy body, so use it alongside spinach, not in place of all the sorrel.

If sorrel is a sour leaf in a salad

Young sorrel leaves go into salads and get used as a garnish.³ For a raw salad, you want a leaf with some bite.

1. Young arugula

Britannica describes arugula as having a “peppery, nutty taste,” and notes that the young leaves are often eaten raw. It gives a salad the punch sorrel would, but as pepperiness, not sourness. Pick young leaves: Britannica says the leaves get more and more bitter as the season goes on and are generally unpalatable once the plant bolts.⁶

Ratio (Method): Use the same amount of leaves and make the dressing more lemony than usual.

2. Baby spinach

It’s mild and tender, so the dressing has to bring all the sourness, as in Webster’s spinach-and-lemon approach.⁴

Ratio (Method): Use the same amount of leaves, with a sharp lemon or vinegar dressing.

If you only need the sourness

Lemon juice

This is the simplest fix when the leaf itself doesn’t matter, like a sauce that’ll be strained or a dish where sorrel is a minor note. Add it at the end and taste as you go.

Sumac

Sumac adds sourness without liquid. Katzer describes it as tart and sour with slightly astringent overtones.⁷ Use it as a finishing sprinkle on eggs, fish or a salad. Just know it adds a dark red color, not green.

Ratio (Method): Start with about 1/4 teaspoon of ground sumac per serving, sprinkled on at the end, and add more to taste.

Substitutes that work less well

Substitute	Why it falls short
Mustard greens	Assertive and peppery when raw, and tougher than sorrel when mature; it adds bite, not sourness.
Rhubarb on its own	Tart, but no leafy body, and only a very small amount of oxalic acid in the stalks.⁵ Never use the leaves.⁵
Vinegar on its own	Gives sourness, but sharper and with its own aroma; lemon is closer to sorrel’s fresh tang.

What isn’t known

Sorrel’s sourness varies with the leaf: in one study, bigger, more mature leaves carried more oxalate.² Taste your substitute against the dish, not against a fixed figure.
We couldn’t trace claims that sorrel soup was a popular dish in the colonial era to a source we could open.

Hank Shaw, “Sorrel Sauce”, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, 2014. honest-food.net · Publication ↩ ↩²
Tuazon-Nartea and Savage, “Investigation of Oxalate Levels in Sorrel Plant Parts and Sorrel-Based Products”, Food and Nutrition Sciences, 2013. researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩²
“Sorrel”, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³
Katie Webster, “Sorrel Pesto”, Healthy Seasonal Recipes, 2011 (updated 2023). healthyseasonalrecipes.com · Publication ↩ ↩²
Julie Garden-Robinson, “Prairie Fare: Can Rhubarb Become Toxic?”, NDSU Extension, 2015. ag.ndsu.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³
“Arugula”, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩
Gernot Katzer, “Sumac (Rhus coriaria L.)”, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩

Sorrel Substitutes: How to Replace Its Sourness and Its Leaves