Anchovies vs. Sardines: What’s the Difference? Ask Paul

The FDA maintains a long list of seafood known as the Seafood List. The list includes all species of seafood that are officially approved for sale in the U.S., giving the Latin name, common name, and “acceptable market name” of each.

There are currently 16 different species listed with the acceptable market name of “sardine,” meaning that fish from any of those species may be sold as sardines. They’re all somewhat related to each other—small oily fish in the herring family—but from several different genera and very different regions of the world. A few popular species include Sardinops sagax, Sardina pilchardus, and Harengula clupeola.

Cans labeled “brisling sardines” aren’t sardines at all. They’re sprats, a small, delicious fish of the species Sprattus sprattus.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the authority is not the Seafood List but the FAO Codex Alimentarius, which currently permits 21 sardine species.

All these sardines are commonly canned in oil or water, with their heads and occasionally their silvery skins removed. In general, they have a mild, briny flavor that’s not overly fishy.

Outside of cans, sardines can be found fresh at the fish market—and make magnificent grilling material—as well as dried, for simmering into dashi or toasting as a snack.

Anchovies, like sardines, are oily bait fish, eaten by other fish in large quantities, and also by us. 

Twenty-six species are in the Seafood List, but there are a few that are by far the most popular: Engraulis mordax, Engraulis encrasicolus—which is the European type usually sold jarred in salt and labeled “Product of Morocco”—and Engraulis ringens, the Peruvian anchoveta, of which millions of tons are caught every year, making it the most fished fish in history.

Anchovies are typically gutted, filleted, and cured in brine before canning, which turns their flesh red-brown and velvety and gives them the particular savory, ultrasalty taste they’re famous for.

White anchovies, or boquerones, are often seen on tapas menus. They are the exact same fish species, but they’re gently pickled in vinegar or canned without brining, which keeps their meat white, hence the name. They’re not particularly salty, and their flesh is firm and toothsome, making these anchovies a dish in their own right.

Salty brined canned anchovies are typically eaten not as a dish but as an ingredient—sometimes a secret ingredient. They’re called for in hundreds of our recipes, giving depth and umami to all manner of otherwise non-fish-adjacent dishes. Chicken soup? Quinoa taco salad? You know it. 

Canned sardines, on the other hand, are rarely a seasoning ingredient and more often a star, or at least co-star, in sardine sandwiches (an embarrassing elementary-school-lunch favorite of mine), in pasta, or straight from the can. Connoisseurs know that canned sardines improve with aging, sometimes for years. Don’t scoff till you try them.