White wine is easier to cook with than it looks. Here's how to choose, use, and store it, what to substitute, and 1,603 recipes to get you started.

What is white wine?

White wine is the cook's everyday workhorse for anything bright and savory. It adds acidity and a layer of fruity, slightly tart flavor that lifts rich food and keeps it from tasting flat.

Forget the label and the vintage. What matters at the stove is dry versus sweet. A dry white has almost no residual sugar, so it sharpens a sauce instead of sweetening it. That is the bottle you want for nearly all cooking.

It belongs to the broader world of cooking with wine, where wine is used to deglaze a hot pan or reduce down into a sauce. The simplest rule still holds: cook with a wine you would actually drink.

Cooking With White Wine

The classic move is deglazing. After you sear chicken or shrimp, the pan is coated in browned bits stuck to the bottom.

Pour in a splash of white wine off the heat and scrape, and those bits dissolve into the base of a sauce. Chicken Piccata with Pasta & Mushrooms is built on exactly this, with the wine scraped up together with lemon and capers.

Reducing is the other workhorse. Simmer wine down by half or more and the harsh alcohol cooks off while the flavor concentrates. Beurre blanc starts here: reduce dry white with shallots, then whisk in cold butter for a silky sauce.

A cream sauce works the same way. That is why Snapper with Basil Cream Sauce and Pork Tenderloin in Thyme White Wine Cream Sauce both lean on a white-wine reduction before the cream goes in.

White wine is also the liquid that makes a risotto sing. A glug after the rice toasts, stirred until it disappears, sets the acidic backbone before the stock goes in ladle by ladle.

A little goes a long way. Most pan sauces need only ¼ to ½ cup, not half the bottle.

What to Pair It With and What to Avoid

White wine loves anything from the sea. It cuts through butter and richness, which is why Shrimp Scampi Pasta reaches for it alongside garlic and lemon. The same logic carries chicken, pork, mushrooms, leeks, and cream sauces of every kind.

Reach for a crisp, dry style: Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, unoaked Chardonnay, or a dry white blend. These bring acidity without baggage. They keep a sauce clean and let the other flavors lead, the way the white wine and mustard do in Chicken Dijonnaise.

Here is the mistake that ruins more sauces than any other. Do not cook with the "cooking wine" sold in the grocery aisle next to the vinegar.

It carries a heavy dose of added salt as a preservative, and once you reduce it that salt concentrates into something harsh and undrinkable. Buy a real, inexpensive bottle instead.

Two more traps. Skip heavily oaked Chardonnay for savory cooking, because the oak turns bitter and woody when reduced. And skip sweet whites like Moscato or off-dry Riesling in a savory dish, where the sugar makes a sauce cloying. Save sweet wine for poaching fruit or a dessert syrup.

Substitutes

No open bottle? Dry vermouth is the best stand-in, and arguably an upgrade. It is fortified and aromatic, so it brings a similar dry acidity. An opened bottle keeps for weeks in the fridge instead of days. Use it splash for splash.

For a non-alcoholic swap, use chicken or vegetable stock with a small squeeze of lemon or a splash of white wine vinegar to bring back the acidity wine would have added. Start with about a teaspoon of acid per ½ cup of stock and taste.

Dry white wine and dry sherry can trade places in many savory sauces, though sherry is nuttier and bolder, so use a slightly lighter hand. Plain water never matches the brightness, so add a little acid whenever you reach for it.

Buying and Storing

You do not need an expensive bottle to cook well. A clean, dry white in the $8 to $12 range is plenty. The test is simple: if it is pleasant to sip, it is good to cook with.

Once opened, an unfortified white wine starts to oxidize. Re-cork it, keep it in the fridge, and use it within three to five days for the freshest flavor. After that it dulls and flattens, though it will still work in a long braise where subtlety matters less.

If you only ever need a splash, keep a bottle of dry vermouth instead of opening wine you will not finish.

For leftover wine, freeze it in an ice cube tray and drop a cube straight into a simmering sauce. It will not be drinkable after freezing, but it deglazes and reduces just fine.

Nutrition

Quick facts

Where to find white wine: White wine is usually found in the liquor section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

Food group: White wine is a member of the Beverages US Department of Agriculture nutritional food group.

In Chinese

白葡萄酒

British (UK) term

White wine

en français

vin blanc

en español

vino blanco

How much does white wine weigh?

Amount	Weight
1 fl oz	29 grams
1 serving 5 fl oz	147 grams

Related

Beverages

Recipes using white wine

There are 1603 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 1,603 recipes

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