Vinegar Powder: What It Is, How It’s Made and How to Use It

Want salt and vinegar chips with a big vinegar punch that don’t go soggy? That’s the job of vinegar powder: liquid vinegar dried onto maltodextrin, a starch product, so it sprinkles and mixes like a spice. It isn’t a modern trick, either. A recipe for powdered vinegar goes back to the early 1600s, according to Tasting Table. Both products we checked are made from distilled white vinegar.

At a glance

How it is made

Boyette describes the usual method as misting vinegar onto maltodextrin and letting it dry.³ Spices Inc. describes its product as distilled white vinegar dehydrated and bonded onto a maltodextrin base, which gives a soft, free-flowing powder.²

U.S. regulations define maltodextrin as a nonsweet nutritive saccharide polymer made by partial hydrolysis of corn, potato or rice starch, and FDA allows it in food with no limit beyond good manufacturing practice.⁴ It’s a carbohydrate, so vinegar powder isn’t calorie-free. The Spices Inc. label lists 15 calories and 3.7 g of carbohydrate per teaspoon. The same label lists 1.9 mg of sodium per teaspoon, so this one adds tang with almost no sodium.²

Powdered vinegar isn’t new. Boyette writes that a recipe for powdered vinegar goes back to the early 1600s, in Gervase Markham’s The English Housewife.³ We haven’t seen the original recipe, so we can’t tell you how it was made.

Flavor

Vinegar powder tastes like the vinegar it was made from: tart, sharp and pure. The first taste is an acidic bite that fades fast. Pair it with other spices to balance its pungency.

How to use it

• Snacks. Toss with salt over potato chips, popcorn or french fries.
• Rubs and blends. Add it to dry rubs and seasoning blends that need some tang, barbecue rubs included.
• Soups, stews and beans. Woodland Foods suggests adding it to stews, chili, soups and beans for tang.¹
• Dressings and marinades. Whisk it into olive oil with herbs for a salad dressing, or into a marinade.

Ratio (Method): Start small. Products differ in strength, so taste as you go.

Want other dry ways to add sourness? Try sumac, which is tart and sour with slightly astringent overtones.

Buying and storage

Check the ingredient list. Some powders are just maltodextrin and vinegar, while others add modified food starch. Spices Inc. recommends an airtight container in a cool, dark place,² and Woodland Foods a cool, dry place.¹ Neither gives a shelf life.

Related

• Too much vinegar: balancing an over-sour dish
• Worcestershire powder and soy sauce powder, two other dried condiments built on maltodextrin
• Sumac and sumac substitutes
• Seasoned salt and all-purpose seasoning