Does alcohol cook out of wine? Only partly: a dish simmered for 15 minutes still holds about 40 percent of the alcohol you started with, and even 2.5 hours of simmering leaves about 5 percent, according to the USDA's retention table.
That is the whole answer in one breath. The rest of this page is the table behind it, how to read it, and what a cook can actually do about it. I wrote it because the same handful of percentages get repeated all over the internet with no link to where they came from. These come from the USDA's own table, and I will show you exactly where.
What Happens to Alcohol When You Cook With Wine
Ethanol boils at about 173 F (78.4 C), water at 212 F (100 C), which is why people assume the alcohol leaves first and leaves fast. The real picture is slower and messier. Alcohol and water are mixed together in wine, and the only place the alcohol can escape is the surface of the liquid. That is my cooking reasoning, the table itself only measures what is left. Time and surface are doing almost all the work, and the table below shows time.
The USDA Alcohol Retention Table
The USDA's Nutrient Data Laboratory published these figures as the alcohol entries in its Table of Nutrient Retention Factors, Release 6 (December 2007). The table says its factors are reported to the nearest 5 percent, and it describes an analytical study that measured alcohol by gas-liquid chromatography after no heat, adding alcohol to a boiling liquid, flaming, and baking for different lengths of time. The study it points back to is Augustin and colleagues, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in 1992.
Percent of the original alcohol still in the food:
| What you did with the wine or spirit | Alcohol remaining |
|---|---|
| Stored overnight with no heat (a marinade, a soaked cake) | 70 percent |
| Stirred into hot liquid | 85 percent |
| Flamed | 75 percent |
| Stirred in, then baked or simmered 15 minutes | 40 percent |
| Stirred in, then baked or simmered 30 minutes | 35 percent |
| Stirred in, then baked or simmered 1 hour | 25 percent |
| Stirred in, then baked or simmered 1.5 hours | 20 percent |
| Stirred in, then baked or simmered 2 hours | 10 percent |
| Stirred in, then baked or simmered 2.5 hours | 5 percent |
| Baked 25 minutes, not stirred in | 45 percent |
Read the bottom row again. Alcohol that is not stirred into the food, say wine in a baking dish under a crumb topping, retains more after 25 minutes (45 percent) than the stirred 30-minute row (35 percent). Stirring helps it leave, a point the Idaho State report below also makes, though the USDA table only shows the two numbers.
One limit to be straight about: this table treats every alcoholic beverage as one category. It does not give separate numbers for wine, beer, or spirits, so I will not pretend it does. If you have seen a page claiming a different retention for brandy than for white wine, that page is not getting it from this table.
Why Time Is the Biggest Lever
Look at the stirred rows from 15 minutes down to 2.5 hours. The drop from 15 to 30 minutes is only 5 points. The drop from 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours is 15. Alcohol does not vanish on a clock, and the last stretch is a long one. If a recipe says "cook until the alcohol burns off," that is usually a shorter promise than the table supports.
How Pan Width and Technique Change What Stays
The USDA table does not test pan size, so treat this section as my judgment as a cook, not a measured result. Evaporation happens at the surface of the liquid. A wide pan has more surface for the same volume of wine than a tall narrow pot, so a reduction in a wide sauté pan gives the alcohol more room to leave than the same wine in a deep saucepan. A secondary report from Idaho State University says the same thing in plain terms: more alcohol stays in recipes made in smaller pans, and toppings such as bread crumbs can trap vapor. I have not checked what study that report rests on, so I am leaning on the cooking logic, not on a number.
Here is how that plays out across the methods I reach for:
- Reduction in a wide pan. Deglaze, then boil the wine down by half or more with nothing covering it. This is the technique that gives alcohol the best chance to leave, and it is also where the wine's acid and sugar concentrate. My classic beurre blanc is built on wine, shallots and vinegar, and the bordelaise variation in the espagnole recipe reduces red wine the same way.
- Braise or stew with the lid on. Slow, long, and sealed, which means the vapor condenses back into the pot. The long clock still works for you, which is why the 2.5 hour row is the low one, but a lid slows the escape, in my judgment. If you are weighing the two methods, the braising versus stewing guide lays out when each one fits. A heavy lidded pot like the 5-quart enameled cast iron Dutch oven is the vessel most braises live in.
- Soup that simmers uncovered. My French onion soup uses sherry and burgundy. Any soup that wine goes into early and simmers long lands you down the stirred rows of the table.
- Wine added at the end. A splash stirred into a finished pan sauce is the 85 percent row. That is a fine, bright finish, but it is nearly all the alcohol you put in.
If you want a wider surface for reducing, a 10 inch sauté pan with lid does the job. For smaller sauces, a 5-ply stainless saucepan is the pot I would reach for. For the sauce families that lean on a wine reduction, start with the five mother sauces guide and the longer home cook's guide to the five mother sauces.
Why Flambe Keeps Most of the Alcohol
The USDA lists flamed at 75 percent remaining. My read on why: the flame burns the alcohol vapor sitting above the pan for a few seconds, it does not cook the liquid underneath, and the liquid is still full of alcohol when the flame dies. A flambe is a show and a flavor step. It is not a way to take alcohol out of a dish. That is my cooking judgment on the mechanism, the 75 percent is the USDA's number.
Harsh Taste Gone Is Not the Same as Alcohol Gone
This is the mistake I see most in home kitchens. When a wine sauce stops smelling sharp and starts smelling round and sweet, people read that as the alcohol being gone. It is not. Simmering drives off the volatile, sharp aromatics and concentrates the sugars and acids, so the dish tastes mellower well before the alcohol is anywhere near the bottom of the table. Tasting a sauce and deciding it no longer has alcohol in it does not work. The 15 minute row, 40 percent still in the pot, can taste smooth and finished. That is my kitchen judgment, not a USDA finding.
Who Should Care About the Numbers
Most home recipes use a small amount of wine spread across several servings, so for many cooks this is a technical curiosity. It matters for people who avoid alcohol entirely, and for anyone cooking for them. That includes people avoiding alcohol for health, religious or recovery reasons, and anyone who is pregnant. For pregnancy, the CDC says: "There is no known safe amount of alcohol use during pregnancy." It adds: "There is no safe time during pregnancy to drink alcohol." I am a cook, not a doctor, so read the CDC's page, "About Alcohol Use During Pregnancy," and ask your own clinician, rather than taking a rule of thumb from a recipe page.
If you need a dish with none of it, the table does not offer a safe cooking time. The only way to have none is to leave it out, and I cover wine substitutes and how to dilute them in our guide to cooking wine versus regular wine.
Quick Answers
Does alcohol cook out of wine? Only partly. After 15 minutes of baking or simmering with the wine stirred in, 40 percent remains. After 2.5 hours, 5 percent remains.
Does alcohol cook off in 30 minutes? The USDA table shows 35 percent still remaining after 30 minutes when it is stirred in and baked or simmered.
Does alcohol burn off when you flambe? Not most of it. The USDA lists 75 percent remaining after flaming.
Does the alcohol leave faster from a wider pan? My cooking judgment says yes, because more surface lets more alcohol leave, and a secondary university report says smaller pans hold more. The USDA table itself does not test pan size.
Does it matter if the wine is cooked or baked uncovered? Alcohol that is stirred in and simmered leaves faster than alcohol that sits unstirred in a baked dish, which is 45 percent after 25 minutes in the USDA table.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Nutrient Data Laboratory. USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors, Release 6 (December 2007). https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400525/Data/retn/retn06.pdf
- Augustin J, Augustin E, Cutrufelli RL, Hagen SR, Teitzel C. Alcohol retention in food preparation. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 1992;92(4):486-488. (The study the USDA table cites for its alcohol method.)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About Alcohol Use During Pregnancy. https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol-pregnancy/about/index.html
- NIST Chemistry WebBook, Ethanol, normal boiling point. https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?ID=C64175&Mask=4
- Idaho State University. "No Worries, the Alcohol Burns Off During Cooking, But Does It Really?" (2019). https://www.isu.edu/news/2019-fall/no-worries-the-alcohol-burns-off-during-cookingbut-does-it-really.html
Thank You
Thank you for reading, and for caring enough about what is in your pot to look up the numbers instead of trusting a rule of thumb. If this saved you from an awkward dinner, or just made your next reduction better, I am glad.
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