diff --git a/pkgs/by-name/te/text-engine/package.nix b/pkgs/by-name/te/text-engine/package.nix
index 345a3cbb9e5f..6250ff9c88c3 100644
--- a/pkgs/by-name/te/text-engine/package.nix
+++ b/pkgs/by-name/te/text-engine/package.nix
@@ -36,10 +36,15 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   buildInputs = [
     libadwaita
-    json-glib
     libxml2
   ];
 
+  postPatch = ''
+    # See https://github.com/mjakeman/text-engine/pull/42
+    substituteInPlace src/meson.build \
+      --replace-fail "dependency('json-glib-1.0')," ""
+  '';
+
   meta = {
     description = "Rich text framework for GTK";
     mainProgram = "text-engine-demo";