The three main types of rice vinegar (mi cù, 米醋) used in Chinese cooking are white rice vinegar, black rice vinegar (or Chinkiang Vinegar), and red rice vinegar.
In this article, we’ll be focusing on Chinese red vinegar.
(For more info on the other two types, check out their individual articles: White Rice Vinegar & Chinese Black Vinegar.)
What Is Chinese Red Rice Vinegar?
Chinese red vinegar (dà hóng zhè cù, 大红浙醋) is made from red yeast rice (hóng qū mǐ, 红曲米), a type of fermented rice that gets its bright red/purple color from being cultivated with monascus purpureus mold.
Red vinegar is mild, with about half the acidity (2.47%) of your everyday distilled white vinegar (5%). The Koon Chun brand of red vinegar has a distinctly wine-like taste.
How Is It Used?
Red vinegar is probably the least used type of rice vinegar in Chinese cuisine. However, it does have some very specific uses.
The vinegar is often served in Cantonese restaurants as a garnish for seafood soups. It is also used in dishes like Chinese Fried Pigeon for flavoring and to help the skin crisp during frying.
Buying & Storing
Look for red vinegar near the other rice vinegars in your local Chinese grocery store (usually the same aisle as the soy sauce). You may also be able to purchase it online, though it will be significantly more expensive. Store in a cool, dry place, like your pantry.
Substitutions for Red Vinegar
If you can’t find red rice vinegar, you can substitute white rice vinegar/rice wine vinegar, which is usually more readily available, even in regular supermarkets.
Our Favorite Dishes That Use This Ingredient:
If you have further questions about red rice vinegar, let us know in the comments––we try to answer every single one.
Joycelyn says
Hi guys. I have a question about the Wan Ja Shan red vinegar ingredient list compared to other brand red vinegar ingredient lists.
Explanation. I’d asked hubby to pick up a bottle of the Koon Chun red vinegar depicted on your Chinese ingredient list at our local T & T Asian market ( in BC Canada ) when he was out and about as I had hoped to get that very brand since you featured it.
Unfortunately the Asian market did not stock the Koon Chun brand so hubby grabbed two different red vinegars with the same low acidity of the Koon Chun.
The brands he bought are Wan Ja Shan red vinegar and what looks to be via the limited English on the bottle, “beaudeal” Shanghai red rice vinegar.
I think from the ingredient lists on the two bottles, the beauideal shanghai rice vinegar would be the better one to use as it contains water, rice vinegar wheat bran, salt.
The Wan Ja Shan brand ingredient list on the other hand, is water, vinegar, salt, molasses, FD&C Red #40 and is very bright in colour as in close to the red colour we see in some Red Velvet cakes where a lot of red food colouring was used.
I do apologize for drawing this out so long but wanted to get your expert opinion as not being familiar with Chinese red vinegar and being a bit leery about food products that use red food colouring, I had to ask before discarding one of my red vinegars.
Thanks so much
Bill says
Hi Joycelyn, I haven’t used Wan Ja Shan before, but it sounds similar to Koon Chun which also uses red food coloring. The Shanghai rice vinegar sounds interesting and is likely made with red rice with natural coloring but I wonder if the flavor is similar – you’ll have to give them a taste.
Joycelyn says
Thank you Bill. You’re right, the beaudeal brand does have the wording red rice on the label. I think I’ll stick with that one because there is no mention of red food colouring in the ingredient list.
Appreciate you taking to time to respond.
Wei says
Does Chinese red vinegar contain alcohol?
Sarah says
No, it doesn’t contain alcohol, Wei. Thanks for your question!