Trehalose and ordinary table sugar may look almost identical, but they behave quite differently in food.
Both are disaccharide sugars, but trehalose is much less sweet than sucrose and has several functional properties that make it particularly useful in baking, pastry, confectionery and frozen foods.
For cooks and food developers, the important question is therefore not simply whether trehalose can replace sugar, but what happens when you replace part of the sucrose in a recipe with trehalose.
What is the difference between Trehalose and sucrose?
Ordinary table sugar is sucrose, a disaccharide made from one molecule of glucose joined to one molecule of fructose.
Trehalose is also a disaccharide, but it consists of two glucose molecules joined together in a different type of bond.
That structural difference gives trehalose some significantly different physical and functional properties.
The commercial trehalose supplied by Trehalose UK is genuine Japanese TREHA®, manufactured by Nagase Viita Co., Ltd., formerly Hayashibara.
Is Trehalose less sweet than sugar?
Yes. This is one of the most noticeable differences.
TREHA® has approximately 38% of the perceived sweetness of sucrose.
In practical terms, this means that replacing some ordinary sugar with trehalose can reduce the sweetness of a recipe without simply removing the same amount of sugar solids.
That can be particularly useful in foods where you want flavours such as chocolate, fruit, coffee, nuts or dairy to remain prominent.
| Property | TREHA® Trehalose | Sucrose |
|---|---|---|
| Relative sweetness | Approx. 38% | 100% |
| Sugar type | Disaccharide | Disaccharide |
| Components | Glucose + glucose | Glucose + fructose |
| Reducing sugar | No | No |
| Typical role | Functional sugar with mild sweetness | Primary conventional sweetener |
Can Trehalose replace ordinary sugar?
Yes, but it should not normally be treated as a direct one-for-one replacement.
Sucrose does much more than make food sweet. It can influence:
- texture
- browning
- aeration
- moisture
- freezing behaviour
- structure
- preservation
Replacing all of the sucrose in an existing recipe can therefore produce a substantially different result.
For many recipes, a better approach is to use trehalose alongside ordinary sugar.
As a practical starting point, try replacing approximately 20–30% of the sucrose with TREHA® by weight.
For example:
100g sugar → 70–80g sugar + 20–30g TREHA®
The ideal proportion depends on the food and the result you are trying to achieve.
Why use Trehalose instead of simply reducing the sugar?
If a recipe is too sweet, simply removing sugar is sometimes possible.
But reducing the total quantity of sugar may also affect the physical characteristics of the recipe.
Partially substituting TREHA® provides another option: some of the sugar solids remain present, but because TREHA® is considerably less sweet than sucrose, the finished food can taste less sweet.
This is particularly useful in professional pastry and product development, where sweetness and sugar solids are separate formulation considerations.
Trehalose vs sugar in baking
TREHA® can be used in cakes, biscuits, pastry, bread, meringues and other baked products.
Its relatively mild sweetness provides greater control over flavour, while other useful characteristics include moisture retention and inhibition of starch retrogradation.
This means partial substitution can be useful where the aim is to produce a baked product that is less sweet while retaining desirable texture and moisture.
A straightforward cake containing 200g of sugar, for example, could initially be tested with:
160g sucrose + 40g TREHA®
That is a starting formulation rather than a universal rule. Different baked products respond differently to changes in their sugar systems.
For more detail, see our How to Use Trehalose in Baking guide.
Trehalose vs sugar in ice cream
Frozen desserts are an especially interesting application because sugars influence both sweetness and freezing behaviour.
Increasing ordinary sucrose can help modify frozen texture, but it also makes the product sweeter.
Because TREHA® is much less sweet, it gives formulators another way to manipulate the sugar system without introducing the same degree of sweetness.
Hayashibara has also demonstrated a difference in ice-crystal growth between trehalose and sucrose solutions. In its controlled test, the increase in average ice-crystal area was approximately 45% lower with trehalose than with sucrose under the stated experimental conditions.
It is important not to over-generalise that laboratory result to every ice-cream formulation. A published ice-cream study found differences in glass-transition behaviour but did not find significant inhibition of ice-crystal growth as trehalose concentration increased in its particular ice-cream system.
The practical value of TREHA® in frozen desserts therefore comes from the overall formulation: sweetness, solids, freezing characteristics and the desired finished texture.
See our Trehalose in Ice Cream, Gelato and Sorbet guide for a detailed explanation.
Does Trehalose behave differently during heating?
Yes.
Trehalose is particularly stable to heat and acid compared with many other carbohydrates and is a non-reducing sugar.
Those characteristics contribute to its usefulness in processed foods and technical applications where stability is important.
This does not mean trehalose can simply replace sucrose without affecting browning or flavour development. If a recipe depends heavily on caramelisation or other reactions associated with conventional sugars, changing the sugar system may change the finished result.
What about blood sugar?
Trehalose is still a digestible carbohydrate.
The human digestive enzyme trehalase breaks it into two glucose molecules, so TREHA® should not be confused with a non-caloric sweetener or described as a sugar that does not affect blood glucose.
Human research has found differences in the rate of glucose and insulin response after trehalose compared with some other carbohydrates, but this does not justify treating TREHA® as universally “low GI” or as a treatment for blood-sugar control.
See our separate Trehalose and Blood Sugar: What Does the Research Show? guide for a detailed review of this subject.
So when should I use Trehalose?
TREHA® is particularly worth considering when you want to:
- reduce perceived sweetness without simply removing sugar solids
- give chocolate, fruit, coffee or dairy flavours greater prominence
- experiment with moisture and texture in baked products
- formulate ice cream, gelato or sorbet
- develop confectionery and professional pastry recipes
- explore functional uses of sugar beyond sweetness alone
For an existing recipe, 20–30% sucrose replacement is a useful first experiment, followed by adjustment according to the result.
Where can I buy TREHA® Trehalose?
Trehalose UK supplies genuine Japanese TREHA® in several pack sizes:
TREHA® Trehalose Powder 1kg
Best for home cooks, first-time users and recipe development.
TREHA® Trehalose Powder 2.5kg
For regular users and professional kitchens.
TREHA® Bulk Trehalose Powder 20kg
For professional and commercial applications.
Commercial quantities of up to 1 tonne can also be supplied readily, with larger requirements supported through Nagase's distribution network.