Wondering what to do with cooking sherry? This guide covers how to pick it, cook it, store it, and swap it, plus 18 recipes to put it to work.

What is cooking sherry?

Cooking sherry is sherry wine that has been salted, and sometimes sweetened, so it can be sold in the grocery aisle rather than the liquor store. The added salt and preservative make it unfit to drink.

That is exactly the point: the salt lets it dodge liquor licensing so it can sit next to the vinegar.

It still carries the nutty, slightly oxidized flavor that real sherry brings to a sauce or a braise. But the salt changes how you have to use it, and that single fact is why a lot of cooks keep their distance.

Treat it as a salted flavoring rather than a wine, and you will get along with it fine.

How to Cook With Cooking Sherry

Cooking sherry earns its keep in fast, savory dishes where a splash of nutty depth rounds things out. A few tablespoons will deglaze a pan, loosen a stir-fry sauce, or enrich a cream soup.

It is at home in Chinese-American cooking, standing in for Shaoxing wine in a General Tso's Chicken (Real Thing) or a Secret Shrimp Stir Fry. It also lifts the classic creamy casseroles, the kind of role it plays in Chicken Divan and a New England clam chowder.

Seafood is its sweet spot. A small pour deepens the broth in Lobster - Jamaican Style and seasons the gravy in Chicken Orleans.

The one rule that matters: account for the salt. Add the sherry, then taste before you reach for the salt cellar, because the bottle has already done some of that work for you.

Pairing and the Salt Caveat

Sherry's toasted, nutty character flatters mushrooms, cream, onions, shellfish, chicken, and brown butter. It belongs in pan sauces, bisques, French onion soup, and almost any creamy braise.

The defining mistake is forgetting the salt. Reduce cooking sherry hard and you concentrate that salt fast, so a sauce that tasted fine can turn briny by the time it thickens.

Add it early, reduce it gently, then salt the dish only at the very end.

The bigger objection most cooks have is simpler. Cooking sherry tastes flatter and saltier than the real thing.

If a dish leans on the wine for its flavor, like a sherry sauce or a classic she-crab soup, you will taste the difference. For those, a real dry sherry is worth the trip to the liquor store.

Substitutes

The best swap is the one cooking sherry is imitating: real dry sherry, such as a fino or an amontillado, used measure for measure with a pinch of salt added to match. It is cleaner and more aromatic, and you can drink the rest.

A dry white wine or dry vermouth covers the acidity and the deglazing job, though it lacks sherry's nutty, oxidized note. For that toasted quality without sherry, a splash of dry Marsala or even Shaoxing wine gets close in savory dishes.

For an alcohol-free version, use white grape juice or chicken stock with a teaspoon of sherry vinegar or white wine vinegar to bring back the tang. Go easy on any added salt, since stock is already seasoned.

Buying and Storing Cooking Sherry

You will find cooking sherry near the vinegars and oils rather than with the liquor, and it is cheap. Check the label for sodium, since brands vary and a lower-salt bottle gives you more control.

The sibling bottles cream sherry and sherry wine sit in different spots, the first sweet and the second sold as a true drinking wine.

Because it is fortified and salted, an opened bottle keeps far longer than table wine. Stored tightly capped in a cool cupboard, it stays good for cooking for several months, and the fridge stretches that further.

You do not need to babysit it the way you would an opened bottle of red. The flavor slowly dulls over time rather than turning sharp, so trust your nose: if it still smells nutty and clean, it will still season a sauce.

Quick facts

In Chinese

烹饪雪利酒

British (UK) term

Cooking sherry

en français

cuisson xérès

en español

jerez

Recipes using cooking sherry

There are 18 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 18 recipes