My wife has a bad response to higher sulfite levels, so I’ve often substituted water with a splash of apple cider vinegar when deglazing. It adds a little ‘tang’ and depth to the dish, and it’s really important that you don’t put in too much vinegar. Put in a splash and add more to taste.

This method has always worked well for me.

Water works OK, but doesn’t dissolve fat soluble flavor compounds the way alcohol can. If the sauce contains some oil, it may work to deglaze with water and hope the oil soluble bits dissolve into the sauce later.

I say don’t use NA wine, as it’s usually pretty low quality and might negatively affect the flavor. Use a good vinegar and water. My sister who is sober does a 3:1 water to vinegar ratio.

So if the recipe calls for a cup of red wine to de-glaze, use 1/4 cup red wine vinegar mixed with 3/4 cup water(or stock for even more flavor). I’ve tried several of these recipes and it’s basically imperceptible.

For deglazing? Most liquids you would cook with should work. It is less about the liquid itself (barring corner cases) and more about the act of adding liquid loosening up the cooked on bits. You just choose a flavorful liquid so that you can turn that into a sauce.

In this case? Red wine vinegar is probably what you want. That said, you can almost never go wrong with replacing deglazing liquids with some chicken stock. Or… most cooking liquids for that matter. Chicken stock is magic. Dashi fulfills a similar role in Japanese cooking.

But if you are particularly concerned, post the recipe and folk can chime in.

Let me do some maths for a typical situation:

• 125ml of wine (half cup)
• 2l of broth
• 12% alcohol wine
• cooking it for 1h at 78°C (so 25% of the alcohol remains)

The final alcohol content of the dish should be (125ml/2l)*(12%)*(0.25) ≃ 0.2%. For reference an over-ripen banana has twice as much alcohol as that.

Is that such a big deal for your friend? (Don’t assume, ask her.) If it is not, just use wine.

That said if it’s a big deal for her, I wouldn’t recommend non-alcoholic wine. It’s typically awful. Instead use good quality vinegar, as others suggested.

It should, yes.

Also, while this is unlikely to appease your friend if you properly heat the wine during deglazing you’ll cook off any alcohol. I see non-alcoholic cooking wines as being more useful to alcoholics that don’t trust themselves having any booze in the house (though in that case I’d honestly suggest completely avoiding any taste of wine).

Ethyl alcohol does dissolve some chemicals that water and oils don’t. However, it is generally considered acceptable enough to use water or soup stock if wine is not acceptable.

I think you can actually deglaze with any liquid if you want to: even water. Wine is often used for the flavour, and I guess in some dishes the alcohol can affect the other ingredients too.

That said, I imagine lentils would turn out just as good with non-alcoholic wine, so no worries there.

I’m sure you know your friend better than I do, but as a general rule if someone says they won’t eat food with any amount of alcohol in it, it’s good to respect that choice. Some people have allergies or intolerances, or the flavour might cause an alcoholic distress, and that’s before you get into people’s religious, philosophical, or dietary beliefs about alcohol.

Honestly, that’s kind of true for any ingredient, but alcohol tends to be one that people push people on and it can be really triggering for some people.

Generally consider what an ingredient is bringing to a dish when considering alternatives.

Deglazing is simply using a liquid to remove fond from the pan, any liquid will do.

Wine brings a few flavours to a dish, primarily sour and umami. Add a bit of vinegar or other acid for the sour. Tomato paste, fish sauce, soy sauce, and stock will all add umami, but you may have to be careful about the amounts to avoid other flavours you may not like (I’ll sometimes mix small amounts of multiple umami boosters to avoid a specific flavour from standing out).

The main thing you won’t be able to replicate is the aromas carried by the alcohol.

I wouldn’t use non-alc wine, it invariably tastes like shit.

I would use chicken stock, veg stock, a thin tomato juice.

I’ve never deglazed with grape juice, but it might be an interesting experiment. Or perhaps you can deglaze with chicken stock and then add the grape juice for its flavour profile. It would be hella sweet and tangy and not much like red wine, but as long as it tastes good, that’s all that matters

Any time you come across a question that starts with “should I use NA XXX” the answer is, unequivocally, no.

TIL: People who are using wine as an ingredient in a meal, really think they have to use the expensive ones as well. For years we are using just the cheapest bottled wine available. If you think about it, you could also just use balsamic vinegar or something similar for a white wine to add the acidyness/taste. The alcohol does evaporate anyway. But these things are mostly subjective anyway.

Non-alcoholic wines exist and would work just as well for deglazing but probably won’t be as good on the flavor front. Most people would say that the alcohol evaporates out during cooking because it has a lower gas temp than water. Here is a study on that statement.

If the pan is hot enough and little enough wine is used, all the alcohol will quickly evaporate out. It actually tastes bad when that doesn’t happen; you’re supposed to let it stir around until that bit has boiled off.

That being said, the deglaze is there to get the fats and other caramelized components unstuck from the metal and reincorporate them into the meal. Any highly acidic liquid ought to do although it’ll change the flavor profile quite a bit depending on what you use. To be safe and stick to the spirit of what the recipe is trying to get you to do, you can use apple cider vinegar. But you’ll need a base to offset the acidity if you put in too much.

Umm, could you please share the recipe your looking at for lentil bolognese? Please, and thank you!