Where to Find International Ingredients at Your Grocery Store

You're making pad thai for the first time. The recipe calls for fish sauce, tamarind paste, and rice noodles. You head to the grocery store, find the international aisle, and... nothing. Or maybe you find fish sauce there but not tamarind paste, which is actually in the produce section near the fresh herbs.

This is the core frustration with international ingredients: grocery stores don't shelve them consistently. Some stores have a dedicated "Asian foods" section. Others integrate international items throughout the store. Kroger has been moving away from a dedicated ethnic aisle since 2019, spreading items across multiple sections. Trader Joe's doesn't label aisles at all.

The result is that finding gochujang might mean checking three different spots — the international aisle, the condiment section, and the refrigerated specialty foods area — before you find it.

Based on the most common search queries we see, here's where grocery stores typically stock the hardest-to-find international ingredients.

Miso paste is almost always refrigerated, not on a shelf. Check the produce section near the tofu and kimchi, or the specialty cheese area. At Trader Joe's, it's in the refrigerated section near the salad dressings.

Gochujang (Korean chili paste) is a split: some stores refrigerate it near the miso and kimchi, while others shelve it in the international aisle near the soy sauce. Walmart tends to stock it in the international section. Whole Foods refrigerates it.

Tahini is typically in the international or Middle Eastern section, but at some stores it's with the nut butters near the peanut butter. Trader Joe's keeps it near the oils and vinegars.

Fish sauce is one of the more consistent ones — it's almost always in the international or Asian foods aisle, near the soy sauce and rice vinegar. The bottle is small, so look carefully on lower shelves.

Coconut milk (canned) usually lives in two places: the international aisle and the baking aisle. If you can't find it in one, try the other.

Tamarind paste is the trickiest. Some stores stock it in the international aisle, some in the produce section, and some don't carry it at all. Your best bet at a conventional grocery store is the Indian or Thai section of the international aisle.

There's no industry standard for where international ingredients go. Each grocery chain makes its own decisions based on store size, local demographics, and company philosophy.

Stores with large international food sections — like H-E-B, Wegmans, and some Kroger locations — tend to group everything by cuisine: Thai items together, Indian items together, Mexican items together. This makes it easy to find everything for one recipe but hard to compare, say, different hot sauces from different cuisines.

Smaller stores like Aldi and Trader Joe's tend to integrate international items throughout the store. Trader Joe's puts sriracha next to the other hot sauces, not in a separate Asian section. This feels more intuitive for frequent shoppers but baffles anyone looking for something specific.

The trend is moving toward integration. More stores are stocking items in multiple locations — you might find soy sauce in both the Asian section and the regular condiments aisle. Good for shoppers, confusing for anyone trying to figure out where to look first.

If you're cooking from a new cuisine and need multiple unfamiliar ingredients, start with the international aisle but don't stop there. Refrigerated items (miso, gochujang, fresh curry paste, wonton wrappers) are rarely in the international aisle — they're in the produce or dairy sections.

Check the store's app if they have one. Kroger and Walmart both let you search for specific products and see the aisle number. The data isn't always perfect, but it narrows your search.

For hard-to-find items, Asian grocery stores and international markets are often better stocked and cheaper than conventional grocery stores. If you have one nearby, it's worth the trip for items you'll use regularly.

And if you're standing in the store right now trying to find something, that's exactly what AisleFinder is built for. Describe what you need in your own words — even if you don't know the exact name — and it tells you where to look at your specific store.