Vermouth as a White Wine Substitute?

[rexreed]

Does anyone use vermouth in place of white wine in recipes? I'm tired of white wine spoiling in my refridgerator, and I know that Julia Child was a big vermouth fan. Looking for some feedback, please.

[Megan Blocker]

Vermouth is a great substitute, and it sure does last a long time. I agree - I'm more of a wine sampler than a collector (I just don't have the space), so there's no telling whether that bottle of Riesling I bought to try out is going to work or not in the recipe at hand (though you can be pretty sure I'll manage to get it down via the glass). With vermouth, you always know what you're going to get, and for someone who cooks for one most nights, it's great to have something that lasts and lasts.

That said, I do cook with wine on a pretty regular basis, but vermouth is still great to have on hand.

I have a great recipe for a flank steak with a vermouth, caper and mustard pan sauce - PM me if you'd like to try it!

Edited October 6, 2005 by Megan Blocker (log)

[helenas]

i keep dry Noilly Prat in my fridge and often make this substitution - but one should be carefull if the recipe calls for quite a bit of white wine - vermouth is strongly flavored!

[BeJam]

I've had moderate success freezing wine that's soon to spoil, then using that to cook with. It never froze completely but I don't recall that it lost any of its flavor or picked up anything new.

[Country Cook]

I use it in small amount to deglaze, flavour sauces, steam mussels, it's always handy in the fridge.

[Jaymes]

I use it all the time as a substitute. As others have said, it's always handy.

[carswell]

There are potentially three problems with subbing white vermouth: its higher alcohol content (usually 15% as opposed to, say, 8-13%), its added flavours and its sweetness. In small quantities — for example, the amount you'd use to deglaze a skillet in which you seared a steak — none of these really enter into play; the alcohol burns off, the flavours are overwhelmed by the other flavours and there's too little sugar involved to spoil the dish. In such situations, white vermouth makes a fine substitute. Where you should tread with caution is when using larger quantities, especially when cooking delicately flavoured ingredients. I probably wouldn't reach for the Noilly Prat when making rabbit stewed in white wine (2½ cups) or when boiling down a cup's worth of wine to a syrupy couple of tablespoons to sauce a fish (unless I was looking for the flavours and sweetness it would provide, of course).

Like BeJam, I freeze leftover wine. Unlike his, mine freezes solid. The freezing really doesn't damage the wine (it remains drinkable) although some reds will throw a sediment upon thawing.

[Smithy]

I use vermouth frequently as a deglazing liquid, but because it has a different flavor than wine, I don't generally substitute one for the other. To me, vermouth has more of a dry herby flavor than wine does. It's a bit like substituting, oh, lemon juice for lime juice in a recipe. The results are usually good either way, but they're different.

I've read that wine can be cooked down almost to a syrup consistency to save space, then frozen. I haven't tried it myself, and I don't know whether it would work as well on white wine - but I can't see why it wouldn't.

[CtznCane]

Vermouth is always handy for chicken or veal piccata. For deglazing it is great. I agree with others that I might be hesitant about using it in larger volumes, but overall it is a very handy wine to have on hand in the kitchen. Of course since we are martini drinkers we always have it on hand to begin with too which also helps.

[mizducky]

Does anyone use vermouth in place of white wine in recipes? I'm tired of white wine spoiling in  my refridgerator, and I know that Julia Child was a  big vermouth fan. Looking for some feedback, please.

←

I actually started subbing vermouth for white wine based on Julia's recommendation. I was afraid the flavor difference would throw things off, but found it worked quite nicely for anything requiring the odd glassful of wine here or there, like an impromptu risotto. Like others have said, if I were making a dish where the wine would be a major presence, I'd buy a wine more suited to being that major presence. But for quickie little additions of wine, vermouth does pretty darn good.

[rexreed]

Interestingly, today I was in a bookstore and leafed through the new issue of 'cook's illustrated', and they rated white wines for cooking. Number one was sauvignon blanc and number 2 was actually vermouth, which beat all the other wines.

[rickster]

I've taken to using vermouth too and agree with all the points on this thread. Just wanted to point out something that is probably blindingly obvious to vermouth drinkers but was not to me. Not all white vermouths are dry. I bought a bottle of Martini & Rossi Bianco vermouth recently for cooking and discovered it was sweet. Had to toss it.

[francois]

I use vermouth regularly (Noilly Prat). It keeps longer than wine...because I dont drink it as fast!

[mantee]

We must all be DRY martini drinkers.

[oraklet]

noilly prat is great for deglazing, in particular after frying chicken and pork. i'm not too happy with it for beef-deglazing - don't know why, really.

[eje]

I regularly make a oven braised salmon recipe of Julia's with Dry Noilly Pratt Vermouth, and think it tastes great. I think she may even recommend it in the cookbook (The Way to Cook).

On the other hand, for deglazing sautes, I've had some failures. Sometimes the flavors of vermouth just do not play well with other items. To me, mushrooms especially seem to pick up the bitter notes of the vermouth and magnify them. After a particularly unpleasant experience with some Maitakes, I've vowed to stick with a nice dry sauvingon blanc in the future for most deglazing.

-Erik

[The Hersch]

Some may find this hard to credit, but Gallo vermouth is actually quite good for cooking, and not bad in a martini, either. And it's cheap even for vermouth.

[mhadam]

Last night I discovered that vermouth with carmalized carrots is fantastic.

Hot pan, little garlic olive oil, toss in baby carrots, shake pan so carrots are coated in oil and get a bit of sear on them.

Toss in 2 garlic cloves finely minced, 1/2 a sliced onion, 1/2 a sliced red pepper -- again shake the pan and let cook for a few.

Deglaze with vermouth -- flambe optional.

Voila -- carmalized carrots with vermouth -- excellent side dish to brown rice with Kievs.

Maggie