Anise Seed: Flavor, Anethole, History and How to Use It

Anise is usually described as tasting like licorice, but one reference work says that’s a mix-up, and points out that anise oil has traditionally gone into licorice candy alongside licorice root.¹ Anise seed, or aniseed, is the sweet dried fruit of Pimpinella anisum, an annual herb in the parsley family from the eastern Mediterranean. Nearly all of its flavor comes from one compound, trans-anethole, and it shows up in pastries, breads, candies and a whole family of spirits from absinthe to anisette. Star anise carries the same compound, but it’s a different plant.

At a glance

What anise is

Anise is an annual that grows to about 0.75 m, with small yellowish-white flowers in loose umbels. The “seed” is a dry fruit, nearly egg-shaped, about 3.5 mm long, with five ridges along its back. PROSEA says the fruits are ready to harvest when they turn grayish-green.

Anise, star anise and fennel

Three common spices share that licorice-like note, and they’re easy to mix up:

Each figure comes from a separate PROSEA entry describing different samples, so the ranges show overlap, not a ranking. PROSEA warns against confusing anise with star anise,¹ and notes that fennel and anise fruits often get confused and substituted for each other.⁵ See star anise, star anise vs. anise seed, fennel seed and fennel seed vs. anise seed.

Flavor and the compounds behind it

Anise tastes sweet and licorice-like, warmer and rounder than fennel, with a faintly herbal finish. Britannica says its flavor resembles licorice.³ PROSEA makes a finer point: anise’s flavor is often confused with licorice and wrongly called licorice-like, and anise oil is traditionally used together with licorice root in licorice candy.¹

The chemistry is unusually simple. PROSEA gives the oil as 80–95% trans-anethole, which it calls the character-impact compound, with up to 5% methyl chavicol (estragole).¹ Britannica gives the oil content as about 2.5% and names anethole as its main component.³ PROSEA’s yield depends on method: 1.9–3.1% by hydrodistillation and 2.3% by hydrodiffusion, with solvent (CO2) extraction yielding more.

Origin and history

Where anise is native depends on which reference you ask:

Kew lists Egypt as neither native nor introduced.² PROSEA says the ancient Egyptians are known to have used anise around 1500 BC.¹ Britannica says it’s been used medicinally since prehistoric times.

The English word arrived around 1300 by way of Old French and Latin from Greek, and the Online Etymology Dictionary notes that the ancients somewhat confused anise with dill.⁶ The popular claim that the Latin name was taken from a Greek word for dill isn’t what that source says.

A few stories get passed around that we couldn’t trace to a source: that Pythagoras praised anise, that Romans served an anise-spiced cake at weddings that was the first wedding cake, and that Hippocrates and Dioscorides prescribed it for coughs.

Where it is grown

Britannica lists anise as grown in southern Europe, southern Russia, the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, China, Chile, Mexico and the United States. Kew records it as introduced across much of Europe and in places as far apart as India, Morocco, Guatemala and Argentina.

Trade figures are old and thin. PROSEA reports that in the 1980s the main exporters were the former Soviet Union, Spain and Poland, with France the main importer, and that world output of anise oil was estimated at 40–50 tonnes a year.¹ We didn’t find a current official production figure for anise seed.

How anise seed is used

• Baking and sweets. Britannica says aniseed is widely used to flavor pastries and is the characteristic ingredient of the German bread Anisbrot. PROSEA lists sweets, confectionery and baked goods, and the traditional pairing of anise oil with licorice in licorice candy.
• Savory dishes. Britannica notes that in the Mediterranean region and in Asia it’s commonly used in meat and vegetable dishes, and PROSEA says it flavors curries.
• Spirits. Britannica names absinthe, anisette and Pernod as liqueurs flavored with the oil; PROSEA also names anisette.
• Tea. Britannica notes that it makes a soothing herbal tea.

In the United States, it’s widely associated with Italian sausage and pizzelle cookies.

In the kitchen

Whole seeds go into breads, cookies and sausage mixes. A quick toast in a dry pan brings up the aroma, and crushing them just before use releases more. Ground anise is strong and loses its aroma fast. Start small: a little anise tastes warm, and too much tastes like candy.

Buying and quality

PROSEA reports that anise fruits get adulterated with spent fruits left over from distillation, dust, and similar-looking fruits and seeds, and that ground anise gets cut with ground fennel.¹ Buying whole seed avoids most of that. Good seed is grayish-green to brown, clean and strongly aromatic when crushed.

Storage

PROSEA says anise is hard to store because its essential-oil content drops quickly, and recommends airtight containers in a cool, dark place. We didn’t find a shelf-life figure from a regulator or standards body.

Nutrition

USDA FoodData Central gives a tablespoon of whole anise seed as 6.7 g and a teaspoon as 2.1 g.⁷ Using its per-100 g values (646 mg calcium, 37.0 mg iron, 21.0 mg vitamin C) and FDA Daily Values (1,300 mg, 18 mg and 90 mg),⁷⁸ here’s how it works out by our math:

A tablespoon is more than most recipes use, so iron is the only nutrient here that adds up to much.

Health and safety

What regulators accept. The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts aniseed medicines on the basis of traditional use only (at least 30 years, including 15 in the EU): for mild indigestion including bloating and flatulence, and as an expectorant in coughs with colds. It limits them to adults and adolescents over 12, advises against using them for more than two weeks, and says people allergic to aniseed or anethole must not use them.⁹ That acceptance rests on long-standing use, not clinical trials. We couldn’t trace claims that anise treats insomnia or anxiety to any regulator or review.

Estragole. Anise oil contains up to 5% estragole.¹ The EU’s former Scientific Committee on Food concluded in 2001 that estragole has been shown to be genotoxic and carcinogenic.¹⁰ We didn’t find a regulatory limit on estragole in anise seed sold as a spice.

Substitutes and comparisons

Star anise and fennel seed are the closest substitutes because they share anethole. See anise seed substitutes for the ranked list, and star anise vs. anise seed and fennel seed vs. anise seed for comparisons. Related: star anise uses, tarragon and chervil, which also have anise-like notes.