Asafoetida (Hing) Substitutes, Including Options Without Onion or Garlic

Out of hing? Raw, asafoetida smells remotely like garlic that isn’t altogether fresh, and fried quickly in hot oil it becomes the savory background of many Indian dals.¹ Onion and garlic are the usual stand-ins: a garlic and onion powder blend for a curry, fresh garlic for a tadka. But plenty of cooks use asafoetida precisely because they don’t eat onion or garlic, so we cover what to do then, too. And check your jar first, because the hing most recipes mean is more than half flour and gum arabic.

Quick answer

How the ratios on this page are labeled

Every ratio carries one of four labels.

• Computed: based on a measurable physical relationship.
• Attributed: a named source publishes this ratio. We quote it as theirs.
• Disputed: named sources give different answers to the same swap. You get each one, side by side.
• Method: our starting point, based on how the two compare. Taste and adjust.

Which asafoetida your recipe means

Most hing you’ll buy is compounded. India’s food regulator defines compounded asafoetida as asafoetida combined with gum arabic, edible starches or edible cereal flour,² and Katzer describes the common powder as more than half rice flour and gum arabic.¹ When a recipe says “a pinch of hing,” it almost always means this diluted powder. Working from pure resin, you’d presumably need less, but we couldn’t find a figure for how much less.

If asafoetida is adding savory depth

Garlic powder and onion powder

This is the swap most cooks reach for. Food writer Meeta Arora of Piping Pot Curry says a blend of garlic and onion powder can replicate asafoetida’s flavor profile, and to “use them in equal measures.”³

All three are sulfur-driven flavors, but not the same compounds, so the match is rough. The blend tastes more plainly of garlic and onion and misses hing’s rounder, slightly funky depth.

How to use it. Don’t fry garlic powder in hot oil the way you’d fry hing. America’s Test Kitchen found that garlic powder straight from the jar hasn’t developed its full flavor,⁴ and that powder sautéed in butter before it was hydrated had almost no garlic flavor at all.⁵ Mix the powders with a little water first, and stir them in once there’s some liquid in the pan.

Ratio (Attributed): Arora’s “equal measures” reads as equal parts garlic powder and onion powder. Her page doesn’t give a total amount against the asafoetida.³ For a starting point, use the same total volume of the mix as the recipe’s compounded hing, then taste and add more.

If asafoetida is fried first in a tadka

In a tadka, asafoetida goes into hot oil or ghee with whole spices, and the resin has to be fried quickly in hot oil to develop.¹ Powders scorch in that oil, so fresh aromatics are the better swap here.

Fresh garlic, with or without onion

Arora suggests a freshly made garlic and onion paste, sautéed in oil or ghee before use.³ Australian spice merchant The Spice People gives an amount, written from the other direction: how much asafoetida replaces garlic or onion.

Ratio (Attributed): The Spice People says half a teaspoon of asafoetida powder can stand in for two minced garlic cloves or two thirds of a cup of minced onion.⁶ That’s a merchant’s rule of thumb with no stated basis, and half a teaspoon is more hing than many recipes use, so scale it to your recipe and taste.

Fry the garlic gently in the fat until it smells cooked but hasn’t browned, then carry on with the recipe. Leeks or shallots, sweated in the same fat, are other options.

If the dish must stay free of onion and garlic

Brahmin and Jain cooks who refuse onions and garlic often use asafoetida in their place.⁶ For these dishes, onion and garlic aren’t substitutes at all. Nothing we found reproduces asafoetida’s sulfur note without them, so the options below add a different kind of depth.

1. Fenugreek seeds

Arora suggests fenugreek seeds, which she says add a slightly bitter, nutty note akin to asafoetida.³ Fenugreek tastes strong, sweetish and somewhat bitter, reminiscent of burnt sugar. It’s a different flavor, not a match, and it goes bitter fast if you overdo it.

Ratio (Method): Fry a small pinch of whole seeds in the tempering oil until they darken slightly, then keep going. Too many make a dish bitter.

2. Cumin and coriander

Arora also lists a mix of cumin and coriander powder.³ It brings warmth and body, nothing sulfurous.

Ratio (Method): If the recipe already has cumin or coriander, bump it up slightly. Otherwise, leave the asafoetida out, finish the dish, and taste before adding anything.

If you want a mild garlic-onion note at the end

Garlic chives

Garlic chives have a mild garlic taste and smell. Stir them into a finished dal or scatter them over a dish, where hing would have been fried in at the start. They won’t give you asafoetida’s cooked-in depth, and they’re an allium, so they’re out for onion-free and garlic-free cooking.

Ratio (Method): Add a small handful, chopped, at the end and taste.

What isn’t known

• Arora’s “equal measures” doesn’t say how much of the blend replaces how much hing.
• How much compounded hing equals a given amount of pure resin depends on the product. We found no published conversion.

Related

• Asafoetida
• Garlic, garlic powder and onion powder
• Garlic chives and chives
• Fenugreek, cumin and coriander
• Black salt and chaat masala
• Garlic powder substitutes and onion powder substitutes

Footnotes

1. Gernot Katzer, “Asafetida (Ferula assa-foetida)”, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. FAQ on asafoetida and compounded asafoetida standards, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. fssai.gov.in · Regulator ↩

3. Meeta Arora, “Substitutes for Asafoetida”, Piping Pot Curry. pipingpotcurry.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Carolyn Grillo, “For Great Garlic Bread, Hydrate Your Garlic Powder First”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2021. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩

5. “Experiment: Bringing Out the Best in Garlic Powder”, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩

6. “Asafoetida: a flavourful substitute for garlic and onion”, The Spice People. thespicepeople.com.au · Merchant ↩ ↩²

Also drawn on

• Allium tuberosum (PROSEA), Q.P. van der Meer, Diah Sulistiarini, Juliasri Djamal and Iman Raharjo, Plant Resources of South-East Asia, via Pl@ntUse. uses.plantnet-project.org
• Fenugreek (last updated 23 Jul 2026), Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com