Bay Leaf Substitutes, Ranked by the Job Bay Is Doing

Stew on the stove and no bay leaves in the jar? Don’t worry too much. A quarter teaspoon of dried thyme per leaf does the job in most soups and stews, and in plenty of dishes you can just leave bay out. Nothing else tastes exactly like it, so every substitute shifts the dish a little. Watch out for the other leaves sold as “bay,” too: one is much stronger, and one you shouldn’t use in its place at all.

Quick answer

You can also skip it. López-Alt calls bay optional in most dishes, though better with it.¹

How the ratios on this page are labeled

Every ratio carries one of four labels.

• Computed: based on a measurable physical relationship, such as converting a whole leaf to a crushed one.
• 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.

If bay is a quiet background in a long-simmered pot

This is bay’s usual job: one or two leaves in a stock, soup, stew, braise or pot of beans. You’re replacing a faint herbal depth, not a flavor anyone would pick out by name.

1. Dried thyme

The Spice House lists dried thyme, dried oregano and ground bay leaf as substitutes.² Tasting Table’s Cassie Womack prefers thyme. She says oregano works in a pinch, but thyme does a better job matching bay’s subtle flavor, and that both are slightly minty and slightly peppery.³

Thyme doesn’t smell the same as bay. It works here because it does the same savory background job.

Dried thyme handles this job better than most dried herbs. In America’s Test Kitchen’s tests, dried thyme, rosemary and sage held up reasonably well in recipes with fairly long cooking times (more than 20 minutes) and a good amount of liquid.⁴ That’s most dishes that call for bay.

Ratio (Attributed): The Spice House says to use 1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme or oregano for one bay leaf, and elsewhere on the same page gives 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon.² Tasting Table gives 1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme per bay leaf. They agree on 1/4 teaspoon as the upper figure. Tasting Table adds that thyme is still stronger than bay, especially fresh,³ so start at the low end in a delicate broth.

Fresh thyme (Attributed): Tasting Table applies the usual 3:1 fresh-to-dried rule to get 3/4 teaspoon of fresh thyme per bay leaf.³ The fresh and dried section below explains where that rule comes from.

2. Dried oregano

The Spice House names dried Greek oregano as the alternative to thyme.² Expect a sharper, more resinous result than with thyme. Tasting Table ranks it second.³

Ratio (Attributed): 1/4 teaspoon per bay leaf, same as thyme.²

Mexican oregano is a different plant, with a flavor that’s stronger, sharper and more pungent than regular oregano.⁵

Ratio (Method), Mexican oregano: It’s stronger, so start below the oregano figure, at about 1/8 teaspoon per leaf, and taste near the end of cooking.

3. Leave it out

López-Alt’s view is that bay is optional in most dishes.¹ If the recipe already has thyme or parsley in it, as a classic bouquet garni of parsley, thyme and a bay leaf does, the easiest fix is to skip the bay, finish the dish and taste. Add a pinch more thyme only if it seems flat.

If you have a different “bay” leaf

Several unrelated leaves get sold as bay, and they aren’t interchangeable.⁶

California bay ratio (Attributed): For a recipe written for Turkish bay, López-Alt says he’d start with a quarter to half the amount.¹

Mexican bay ratio (Method): It’s milder, so start with the same number of leaves and add one more if the pot tastes flat.

If bay needs to disappear into a rub, sauce or blend

A whole leaf is supposed to come out before serving. Whole leaves are stiff and can have sharp points and edges, and one surgical case report describes a 2 cm piece of bay leaf going through the bowel wall.⁷ Crushed or ground bay gets around that. Ground bay can be stirred into sauces, stews and rubs and doesn’t need to be removed.²

Ratio (Computed): These are form conversions, whole leaf to broken leaf, not a different herb.

The two extension services agree on 1/4 teaspoon for crushed or cracked leaf. The Spice House’s lower figure is for finely ground bay, so these numbers describe different products; they don’t actually disagree. All three are volume equivalents and say nothing about potency. The Spice House adds that ground bay, like other ground spices, loses potency faster, within about six months to a year.

If bay is seasoning pork, game or sauerkraut

Juniper shows up a lot in the traditional cooking of Central Europe, and bay sometimes joins it. Traditional sauerkraut is seasoned with juniper, caraway and maybe a few bay leaves,¹⁰ and Saveur’s choucroute garnie ties juniper berries, cloves, garlic and a bay leaf into cheesecloth to cook with the kraut.¹¹ If the bay is missing from a dish like this, a little more juniper can carry the resinous note.

Juniper berries

Bay and juniper share a piney compound, α-pinene.¹²¹³ Bay’s flavor is slightly piney,⁶ and Lisa Bramen describes juniper as slightly piney with touches of fruit and pepper. Juniper is far louder, though, and Bramen’s advice is to go easy.¹⁴

Ratio (Method): Start with 1 or 2 lightly crushed berries per bay leaf and taste near the end. Tie the berries in cheesecloth like Saveur does, so they’re easy to pull out.

Fresh and dried thyme: where the 3:1 rule comes from

Most of the thyme figures above are for dried thyme. If you have fresh, or ground, the conversion matters.

Fresh to dried (Computed): The sources agree that dried herbs are roughly three times as strong as fresh. ATK’s testing found that 1 part dried to 3 parts fresh came closest to equal strength, and it notes that this works best for hardy herbs like thyme in long-cooked dishes.⁴ Penn State gives the range as about a quarter to a third.¹⁵ The Delaware figures, 3/4 to 1 teaspoon dried for 2 to 3 teaspoons fresh, cover the same ground.

Dried to ground (Disputed): NDSU puts 1 tablespoon of fresh herbs at 1/2 teaspoon ground, while Penn State says 1/4 teaspoon powdered, a twofold difference.⁹¹⁵ Neither says how it got its figure. If ground thyme is all you have, start with a small pinch per bay leaf and taste.

What isn’t known

• We found no published conversion between fresh and dried bay leaves.
• Allspice leaves and cinnamon leaves sometimes get suggested as one-for-one swaps for bay. We found no source for either.
• Boldo comes up too, sometimes as a close relative of bay. Kew places boldo, Peumus boldus, in a different family, the Monimiaceae,¹⁸ and we found no cooking source for using it in place of bay.
• Basil also turns up on substitute lists. LSU AgCenter groups basil with the delicate herbs best added in the last minute or two of cooking,¹⁷ which makes it a poor fit for bay’s long simmer.

Related

• Bay leaves, cooking with bay leaves and crushed vs. whole bay leaves
• Too much bay leaf? How to fix the dish
• Curry leaves vs. bay leaves and bay leaves vs. basil
• Thyme, fresh vs. dried thyme and thyme substitutes
• Oregano, Mexican oregano and juniper berries
• Bouquet garni and dried vs. fresh herbs

Footnotes

1. David Leite with J. Kenji López-Alt, “Bay leaves are an optional ingredient, ‘but things are definitely better with them’”, The Splendid Table, 2014. splendidtable.org · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. “Bay Leaf Substitute”, The Spice House, 2021. thespicehouse.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

3. Cassie Womack, “If You’re Out Of Bay Leaves, Use Dried Thyme”, Tasting Table, 2024. tastingtable.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. “Science: Substituting Dried Herbs for Fresh”, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. H.C. Ong and M. Brink, Lippia graveolens, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩

6. Andrew Coletti, “What Is a Bay Leaf, Exactly?”, Atlas Obscura, 2023. atlasobscura.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

7. Bell and Mustard, “Bay leaf perforation of Meckel’s diverticulum”, Canadian Journal of Surgery, 1997. canjsurg.ca · Peer-reviewed ↩

8. In a Pinch Ingredient Substitution (E-131), NMSU Cooperative Extension, 2016. pubs.nmsu.edu · Reference work ↩

9. Julie Garden-Robinson, Ingredient Substitutions (FN198), NDSU Extension, 2018. ksre.ksu.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. Gernot Katzer, “Juniper”, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩

11. “Sauerkraut With Pork and Sausages (Choucroute Garnie)”, Saveur. saveur.com · Publication ↩

12. Caputo et al., “Laurus nobilis: Composition of Essential Oil and Its Biological Activities”, Molecules, 2017. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩

13. Assessment report on Juniperus communis L., pseudo-fructus, European Medicines Agency, 2023. ema.europa.eu · Regulator ↩

14. Lisa Bramen, “What the Heck Do I Do With Juniper Berries?”, Smithsonian Magazine, 2011. smithsonianmag.com · Publication ↩

15. Stacy Reed, “Preserving Herbs by Drying”, Penn State Extension, 2024. extension.psu.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³

16. “Using Herbs and Spices”, University of Delaware Cooperative Extension, 2025. udel.edu · Reference work ↩

17. “Flavorful Herbs”, LSU AgCenter. lsuagcenter.com · Reference work ↩ ↩²

18. Peumus boldus Molina, Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. powo.science.kew.org · Reference work ↩

Also drawn on

• Bouquet garni, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com