Berbere Substitutes, Ranked by the Job Berbere Is Doing

Doro wot on the menu and no berbere? Nothing on the shelf reproduces it, and there isn’t one berbere to copy: Marcus Samuelsson has said every family makes its own and dries it in the sun.¹ The best stand-in depends on what berbere is doing in your dish: heat and color, warm spice, or all of it. Paprika and cayenne cover the first, a pinch of fenugreek and sweet spice gets you closer, and making your own covers everything.

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.

If berbere is doing everything

Make your own

This is the only option that covers every part of the blend. Saveur’s recipe toasts whole spices, grinds them with dried onion flakes and chiles de árbol, then stirs in paprika and ground spices. The base is heavy on chile and onion: half a cup of dried onion flakes, five chiles de árbol and three tablespoons of paprika.² For the full ingredient list, side by side with Samuelsson’s near-identical recipe, see berbere seasoning.

Ratio (Method): Homemade replaces store-bought berbere at the same amount. Chile strength varies, so taste a new batch before you add the full measure.

If berbere is chile heat and red color

Dried chile is berbere’s main ingredient. How hot it is depends on who you ask. Katzer describes the chiles as semihot to hot,³ while Samuelsson calls his own blend “a mild chile blend mellowed out with sweet and floral flavors.”¹ PepperScale calls berbere typically medium in heat.⁴ They’re all describing real blends. Heat varies from jar to jar.

Paprika with a little cayenne

Both American recipes compared on our berbere seasoning page use paprika for bulk and color.² Paprika brings the red; cayenne brings the heat. PepperScale’s own berbere recipe goes the same way: a milder version built on chili powder and paprika, with cayenne added for more heat.⁴ Add cayenne a little at a time and taste as you go.

Hultquist lists cayenne as a berbere substitute,⁵ but on its own, cayenne gives you heat and nothing else.

Ratio (Method): Start with about three quarters of the berbere amount in paprika plus a pinch of cayenne, then taste and add cayenne in small steps.

If berbere is warm, sweet spice and fenugreek depth

The chile base alone tastes flat next to real berbere. What’s missing is the layer of fenugreek and sweet spices.

Fenugreek with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon

Fenugreek is one of berbere’s defining ingredients, and cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and allspice bring its sweet notes.³ Fenugreek seed tastes “strong, sweetish, and somewhat bitter,”⁶ with a curry-like smell. Coriander, also in the blend, adds a mild citrus note.

Ratio (Method): To the paprika-and-cayenne base above, add about 1/8 part each of ground fenugreek, cardamom and cinnamon and a small pinch of ground cloves. Fenugreek is somewhat bitter, so taste before you add more.

If you need a ready-made blend

1. Ras el hanout, plus paprika

Hultquist names ras el hanout first among his berbere substitutes.⁵ The overlap is in the warm spices. The Oxford Companion to Food lists cumin, coriander, turmeric, ginger, cardamom and nutmeg as ras el hanout’s standard ingredients, with cinnamon and cayenne usually included.⁷ Coriander, ginger, cardamom and cinnamon are all in berbere.

Where it falls short: ras el hanout isn’t chile-led, and its turmeric turns things yellow, while berbere is deep red. The Oxford Companion’s list has no fenugreek, either.

Ratio (Method): Use about half the berbere amount in ras el hanout and half in paprika, then taste and adjust the heat with cayenne.

2. Gulf-style baharat, plus chile

Gulf-style baharat combines black pepper, chiles and paprika with warm spices like nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom.⁸ Ottolenghi’s baharat lists paprika, chilli and cayenne.⁹ You get berbere’s pepper and sweet spice, but like ras el hanout, no fenugreek.

Ratio (Method): Start with about three quarters of the berbere amount and add paprika if the color’s too pale.

3. Tandoori masala

Tandoori masala shares several spices with berbere. Anupy Singla’s homemade version is built on a cup of whole Kashmiri chiles with coriander, cumin, peppercorns, cloves, cardamom, fenugreek and cinnamon,¹⁰ and Woodland Foods’ blend lists fenugreek and cinnamon.

Don’t pick it for color alone. Singla says the bright red of some store-bought tandoori blends “comes from Food Dyes like Red 40,” and that the blend was originally made “with a leaning towards turmeric and paprika.”¹⁰ Plenty of tandoori blends are salted, too. Woodland’s lists salt first.¹¹

Ratio (Method): Start with about half the berbere amount, taste for salt and heat, and add paprika for color.

4. Harissa powder

Harissa is chile-led, like berbere. The Spice House’s harissa seasoning lists tomato powder, chiles, kosher salt, garlic, cumin, paprika, pepper, coriander, caraway, fennel and lemon juice powder.¹² That brings in caraway and lemon, and none of berbere’s fenugreek or sweet spices.

Ratio (Method): Start with about half the berbere amount, since it has salt in it, and add a pinch of cinnamon and cardamom.

If berbere is a chile rub for grilled meat

Suya spice (yaji)

Suya spice, also called yaji, is a West African blend tied to Nigerian suya. Eat Your Books describes it as “ground dried chiles, ginger, peanuts, and more.”¹³ Hultquist’s recipe adds paprika, garlic and onion powder, white pepper, and ground cloves or nutmeg.¹⁴ The chile, ginger and clove overlap with berbere. The ground peanuts don’t, and they make suya spice nutty and bulky.

If you have a peanut allergy, skip it: peanuts are a base ingredient.¹⁴¹³

Hultquist’s berbere page also names tsire, which it calls another African blend, as a substitute.⁵ None of the sources we opened describes what’s in tsire, so we’ve left it out.

Ratio (Method): Start with about half the berbere amount, because the peanuts dilute the spice, and taste.

If berbere is a paste

Berbere can be made into a paste, awaze, with water, wine or tej (mead), and served at the table as a condiment.³ You can moisten any of the dry substitutes above the same way. We didn’t find a published recipe for that, so it’s an improvisation.

What isn’t known

• None of our sources measures berbere’s heat. Katzer’s “semihot to hot” and Samuelsson’s “mild” describe different blends.³¹
• Mitmita, a hotter Ethiopian chile blend, sometimes gets suggested as a stand-in. We found no source that meets this site’s standard describing it, so it’s not covered here.

Related

• Berbere seasoning and Ethiopian spices
• Ras el hanout, baharat seasoning, tandoori masala, harissa powder and harissa powder substitutes
• Paprika, cayenne pepper, paprika vs. cayenne and chili powder
• Fenugreek, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, ginger and long pepper
• Cooking with cardamom and ground vs. whole cloves

Footnotes

1. Jacqueline Raposo, “Berbere Is Marcus Samuelsson’s Secret Weapon”, Tasting Table, 2016. tastingtable.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. “Ethiopian Spice Mix (Berbere)”, Saveur, 2008. saveur.com · Publication ↩ ↩²

3. Gernot Katzer, “Long Pepper (Piper longum)”, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Matt Bray, “What Is Berbere? The Story Behind The Spice”, PepperScale, 2023. pepperscale.com · Publication · PepperScale is also owned by Matt Bray, the editor of this site. ↩ ↩²

5. Mike Hultquist, “Berbere”, Chili Pepper Madness, 2023. chilipeppermadness.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. “Fenugreek”, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩

7. “Ras-el-hanout”, The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press. app.ckbk.com · Reference work ↩

8. Gernot Katzer, “Paprika (Capsicum annuum)”, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩

9. “Baharat”, Ottolenghi (product page). ottolenghi.co.uk · Merchant ↩

10. Anupy Singla, “Why Your Tandoori Masala Doesn’t Need to be Bright Red”, Indian As Apple Pie, 2013. indianasapplepie.com · Merchant ↩ ↩²

11. “Tandoori Spice Blend”, Woodland Foods (product page). shop.woodlandfoods.com · Merchant ↩

12. “Harissa Seasoning”, The Spice House (product page). thespicehouse.com · Merchant ↩

13. Darcie, “Spice Support: suya (yaji)”, Eat Your Books, 2020. wp.eatyourbooks.com · Publication ↩ ↩²

14. Mike Hultquist, “Suya Spice”, Chili Pepper Madness, 2025. chilipeppermadness.com · Publication ↩ ↩²

Also drawn on

• Trigonella foenum-graecum (PROSEA), C.S. Tawan and N. Wulijarni-Soetjipto, Plant Resources of South-East Asia, via Pl@ntUse. uses.plantnet-project.org
• Turmeric: Usefulness and Safety (last updated April 2025), National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NIH). nccih.nih.gov