Asafoetida (Hing): Flavor, Chemistry, Uses and What’s in the Jar

Asafoetida (hing, in Hindi) smells alarming in the jar and wonderful in the pan. Raw, it’s strongly sulfurous, enough to earn the old nickname “devil’s dung”. Fried briefly in hot oil, it gives Indian dals and vegetable dishes a savory, onion-and-garlic depth, and Brahmins who refuse onions and garlic often use it in their place. It’s the dried resin of a Ferula plant, and most of what you’ll buy is a compounded powder with the resin cut with flour and gum.

At a glance

What asafoetida is

Kew’s Plants of the World Online lists Ferula assa-foetida as a perennial in the Apiaceae, native to southern Iran. Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages, a long-standing spice reference, says several Ferula species grow wild from the eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia, and that the ones used for the spice are native to the stretch from Iran to Afghanistan. The US federal list of generally recognized as safe extractives names the source as Ferula assa-foetida “and related spp. of Ferula”.⁵

The spice is the milky juice from the root, which dries to a brown, resin-like mass. Katzer describes other species, including F. foetida and F. narthex, as inferior substitutes or adulterants.²

The name joins a Latinized form of the Farsi aza, “resin, mastic”, to Latin foetidus, “smelling, fetid”. Katzer says the raw smell earns the old nickname “devil’s dung”.

Flavor and aroma

Katzer describes the raw smell as very strong and rather repugnant, remotely like garlic that isn’t altogether fresh. What happens in the pan is why cooks put up with it. He says the resin has to be fried quickly in hot oil, while the powder can go in without frying, though its aroma then doesn’t develop as fully.² Once fried, it’s mellow and savory, somewhere between onion, garlic and leek.

The compounds

Dried asafoetida is mostly resin (25 to 60% of the mass) and a complex carbohydrate fraction, the gum (25 to 30%), with an essential oil making up about 10%. That oil carries the smell. Katzer says it’s rich in sulfur compounds, mainly (R)-2-butyl-1-propenyl disulfide at about 50%.² Those figures come from a single reference work, and composition varies with species and source. We didn’t open a primary analysis.

Origin and history

According to Katzer:²

• Legend says the soldiers of Alexander the Great came across the plant on their campaigns.
• In the ancient Mediterranean, asafoetida often stood in for silphion, an expensive North African seasoning.
• In ancient Rome it was stored in jars with pine nuts.
• It stayed in use through the early Middle Ages, and after the 16th century it drops out of European cookbooks.

You’ll often read that medicinal use dates to 700 BCE, and that the philosopher Maimonides recommended it. We couldn’t trace either claim to a source we could open.

Production and trade

We found no FAO or other statistical total for asafoetida. A 2020 report in The Week, on India’s first attempt to grow the crop, said India imports about 1,200 tonnes of raw asafoetida a year, worth around USD 100 million, from Iran, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The same report described CSIR’s Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology starting cultivation at Kwaring village in the Lahaul valley of Himachal Pradesh, a cold, high-altitude desert, and said India “might be” the largest consumer.³ Those are reported figures, with no stated statistical source or year of measurement.

How asafoetida is used

In India, Katzer says, asafoetida commonly goes with garlic and cumin into the lentil and legume dishes known together as dal, and it’s even more popular in the Dravidian south. He notes that Brahmins who refuse onions and garlic often use asafoetida in their place. It also shows up, less often, in Persian and Afghan cooking.

Katzer stresses a quick fry in hot oil. That happens either at the start of a dish or in a tempering of hot fat and spices poured over at the end. A pinch is the usual amount.

It turns up in spice blends, too. Tarla Dalal’s chaat masala recipe, for one, includes asafoetida. See chaat masala. In a tempering it often keeps company with cumin, black mustard seeds and curry leaves.

Buying and quality

What is in the jar

India’s food regulator sets two standards under FSSAI regulation 2.9.29:⁴

• Asafoetida (hing) must contain no colophony, galbanum or ammoniacum resin, or any other foreign resin.
• Compounded asafoetida (bandhani hing) is one or more varieties of asafoetida (Irani or Pathani hing) combined with gum arabic, edible starches or edible cereal flour.

Katzer describes the common compounded powder as more than 50% rice flour and gum arabic, added to keep it from lumping.² The FSSAI standard allows “edible cereal flour” without naming the cereal, so if you avoid wheat or gluten, read the ingredient list instead of assuming.⁴

The 2026 FSSAI actions

In August 2026, The Week reported that FSSAI had prohibited the sale of compounded asafoetida from two Indian companies:⁶

The report gives the standard’s limit for starch in hing as no more than 1% by weight.⁶ These findings are about specific samples tested in India. They’re quality and labeling failures under the Indian standard, not reports of anyone getting sick. We didn’t open the FSSAI orders themselves.

Storage

We couldn’t find a published shelf-life figure for asafoetida. The smell is strong and carried by volatile sulfur compounds, so keep it in a tightly sealed container, away from your other spices. If a sniff of the powder barely registers any pungency, it’s faded.

Health and safety

In the United States, asafoetida from Ferula assa-foetida and related species is on the FDA’s list of natural extractives generally recognized as safe for their intended use.⁵ NCCIH’s Herbs at a Glance series has no fact sheet on it.⁷ Lots of health benefits get claimed for asafoetida, but we found no regulator summary or systematic review backing the digestive, respiratory or menstrual benefits you’ll often see, and we’re not claiming it treats or prevents anything.

Substitutes and related pages

Nothing reproduces asafoetida exactly. Where they’re acceptable, garlic and onion, or their powders, are the usual stand-ins. See asafoetida substitutes.

• Garlic
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Black salt, another sulfurous seasoning of Indian cooking