Anardana: Dried Pomegranate Seeds as a Souring Spice

Anardana does in Indian cooking what lemon, amchur or tamarind might do in another dish: it makes food sour, with a dark, fruity edge. It’s dried pomegranate seed, pulp and all. The traditional raw material isn’t the big, sweet pomegranate in supermarkets, though. It’s the small, sour wild fruit of the Himalayan foothills, known locally as daru. Leave the seeds whole and they add crunch, too.

At a glance

What anardana is

Anardana comes from the seeds of the pomegranate, which Kew and Britannica both put in the family Lythraceae. Each seed sits inside a translucent sac of reddish, juicy pulp, the aril. To make anardana, the seeds are dried with that pulp still on. A study of wild pomegranate in Jammu puts it simply: the sun-dried seeds with pulp make up the condiment anardana.³

The traditional raw material isn’t the big, sweet pomegranate in supermarkets. It’s the small, sour wild fruit of the Himalayan foothills. Indian horticulture researchers describe wild pomegranate, known locally as daru, growing scattered on the hill slopes of Jammu and Kashmir and widely on the hilly slopes of Himachal Pradesh. A 2018 review places it on dry, marginal land in the outer Himalaya at about 900 to 1,800 m above sea level.⁴ The Himachal Pradesh study credits the wild fruit with a higher acid content, along with other traits that suit it to anardana.⁵ Cultivated lines work too: one 2018 study screened promising pomegranate selections for the purpose.⁶

Where the pomegranate comes from

Sources describe the native range differently. Kew’s Plants of the World Online gives it as northeastern Türkiye to western and northern Pakistan, and doesn’t list India as native.¹ Britannica says the pomegranate is considered indigenous to Iran and neighboring countries, and that its cultivation spread around the Mediterranean long ago.² The Indian literature cited above treats Himalayan daru as wild.³⁴ Whether those stands are native or very old escapes from cultivation, the sources we read don’t settle.

Kew records the species as introduced in Spain, Italy, France, central Mexico and California, among many other places. The English word comes through Old French from Medieval Latin pomum granatum, “apple with many seeds”. The Spanish city of Granada is said to take its name from Latin granatum, though that etymology isn’t certain.⁷

Flavor and acidity

Anardana tastes sharply sour and fruity, with some astringency and a faint sweetness. Leave the seeds whole and they add crunch, too.

The sourness has been measured. A 2018 study notes that the arils of wild pomegranate are a rich source of organic acids.⁶ Here’s what’s been reported for titratable acidity, the usual lab measure of sourness. These come from different samples and years, so don’t merge them into one figure.

The last three rows come from secondary tabulations; we didn’t open the original papers.

How anardana is used

The 2018 review describes anardana as an acidulant in many Asian cuisines and in curries. It goes into North Indian chickpea dishes, stuffed breads, fritters and chutneys, usually ground and added for sourness. Whole seeds can be toasted lightly and ground just before you use them. Those dish and technique details are how cooks use it; the sources above don’t spell them out.

For other souring spices, see mango powder (amchur) and sumac.

How it is made, and what good anardana looks like

The traditional method is sun-drying. In Jammu, drying usually takes 10 to 15 days, until the seeds turn reddish brown.³ Researchers have tried faster methods: one study dried arils in a cabinet dryer at 60 °C for 8 hours,⁶ and a Himachal Pradesh thesis found that anardana from a mechanical cabinet dryer and from a solar tunnel dryer came out about the same.⁵

Timing matters too. The same thesis found the best anardana came from fruit harvested about 134 to 140 days after full bloom, depending on location,⁵ and a 2023 follow-up study found you could still make good anardana from wild fruit stored for up to 20 days before processing.⁸

We didn’t find a grading standard for anardana from a regulator or standards body. When you shop, look for seeds that are deep red to dark maroon, slightly sticky and clearly sour when you taste one. Skip dull brown, dusty-looking packs.

Storage

The Himachal Pradesh thesis found anardana kept its quality better refrigerated in vacuum-sealed aluminum laminated pouches, and that solar-dried anardana changed faster in storage than cabinet-dried.⁵ We didn’t find a published shelf-life figure for anardana stored at home. A cool, dark, airtight container is the sensible default. Once the seeds stop tasting sour, they’ve faded.

Health and safety

NCCIH has no page on anardana itself. Its page on pomegranate, which mostly covers juice and extracts rather than dried seeds, says studies show pomegranate may lower blood glucose a little, that juice or extract may help reduce blood pressure though more research is needed, and that no clear effects on cholesterol have been shown. It describes pomegranate juice as believed to be safe and notes that allergic reactions to pomegranate have been reported. Its caution about large amounts is about the root, stem and peel, not the seeds.⁹ We’re not claiming anardana treats or prevents any condition.

Substitutes and related pages

Amchur and sumac are the closest pantry stand-ins for sourness, and pomegranate molasses works where some liquid is fine. See anardana substitutes for the full list.

• Mango powder
• Sumac
• Garam masala