Black Pepper Substitute: Best Swaps

Out of black pepper? White pepper is the easiest swap, one for one, and cayenne works at a quarter the amount if all you need is heat. The trick is knowing which of pepper’s two jobs you’re replacing, the bite or the smell, and whether you need to match its look: dark specks, or none. White pepper wins in a béchamel, long pepper or grains of paradise make sense for finishing, and pink peppercorns and capers aren’t really pepper swaps at all.

Quick answer

What pepper is doing	Best substitute	Starting amount, per 1 part black pepper	Treatment
Bite in everyday cooking	Ground white pepper	1 part	Attributed
Heat, with no pepper flavor needed	Cayenne	¼ part	Attributed
Seasoning a pale sauce or soup	Ground white pepper	1 part	Attributed
Pepper’s aroma, for finishing	Long pepper or grains of paradise, freshly ground	½ part, then taste	Method
You have whole peppercorns, the recipe says ground	Whole black peppercorns, ground	1 tsp whole for 1½ tsp ground	Computed

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.

What makes each substitute peppery

Black pepper and its closest relatives get their bite from piperine and related amides. The other substitutes get their heat from different compounds, so some of them taste “peppery” without tasting like pepper.

A note on cayenne. Its heat comes from capsaicinoids, not piperine, so go by the ratio below and taste.

If pepper is the bite in everyday cooking

1. White pepper

White pepper is the same berry with its outer layer taken off.¹ Sources disagree on how its bite compares:

Source	What it says
Britannica²	White pepper’s flavor is less pungent than black pepper’s
Gernot Katzer³	White pepper keeps the full pungency of black pepper
Codex CXS 326-2017¹	Sets a higher piperine minimum for Grade I white pepper (4.0%) than for Grade I black

They do agree that white pepper is less aromatic. So white pepper covers the bite well and the aroma less well. Katzer also warns that white pepper stored too long can pick up a fecal, musty note,³ so smell the jar first.

Ratio (Attributed): Better Homes & Gardens says to replace ½ teaspoon of black pepper with ½ teaspoon of ground white pepper.⁴

When the amount is large. America’s Test Kitchen tested the reverse swap in hot and sour soup, using 1 teaspoon of black or white pepper. Tasters found the black-pepper soup more aromatic and spicier, and preferred the white-pepper version. In a stir-fry with less pepper, they could hardly tell the two apart. ATK’s advice is to swap only when the recipe calls for a small amount.⁵ The same logic applies going this direction. In a pepper-led dish like cacio e pepe or steak au poivre, white pepper will taste noticeably different.

2. Cayenne

Cayenne gives you the heat but none of the aroma, and its heat builds differently.

Ratio (Attributed): Better Homes & Gardens says ⅛ teaspoon of cayenne can replace ½ teaspoon of black pepper.⁴ That’s a quarter of the amount.

You’ll sometimes see advice to combine white pepper and cayenne, ½ teaspoon white pepper plus ⅛ teaspoon cayenne for ½ teaspoon black pepper. Better Homes & Gardens gives them as alternatives, not a blend. Using both at once piles cayenne’s heat on top of a full dose of white pepper.

If pepper is seasoning a pale dish

White pepper often gets suggested for white, cream-based sauces where black pepper would spoil the color.³ For béchamel, mashed potatoes, cream soups and pale fish dishes, it’s the natural swap.

Ratio (Attributed): As above, Better Homes & Gardens’ one-for-one.⁴

If pepper is aroma, ground over at the end

Here you want something that smells like pepper as well as biting. Each of these is a historical or regional pepper alternative.

1. Long pepper

Long pepper is a close relative in the same genus, and its heat comes from piperine too. Atlas Obscura describes its flavor as similar to black pepper but more complex.⁶ Grind or grate the dried spikes.

Ratio (Method): Start with half the black pepper amount and taste. Long pepper is different enough that matching it by volume is guesswork.

2. Grains of paradise

Grains of paradise were once a common substitute for black pepper, and their heat isn’t as strong as pepper’s but is more subtle.⁷ The heat comes from ginger-family compounds, not piperine. Grind them like peppercorns.

Ratio (Method): Start with half the black pepper amount and add more to taste.

3. Cubeb

Cubeb is another Piper species, and the 1918 Dispensatory of the United States said it was used like black pepper but found much less powerful.⁸ Katzer describes it as bitter and hot, with an aroma variously called woody, camphor-like or spicy and peppery.⁹

Ratio (Method): Start with an equal amount and taste. It may need more for the same bite.

If pepper is a cracked crust

On steak and in rubs, cracked pepper adds texture as well as bite.

Green peppercorns

Green pepper comes from the same plant, made from green berries dried under controlled conditions.¹ Brined green peppercorns sit in strong salt solutions (17% ± 2% in one Kerala Agricultural University process),¹⁰ so rinse them. The Thai cook Suwanee describes fresh green peppercorns as adding a sharp, herbal heat that’s different from dried pepper.¹¹

Ratio (Method): For dried green peppercorns, start with an equal amount, cracked. For brined ones, crush them with the back of a spoon and add to taste. They’re soft and wet and don’t measure like dry peppercorns.

If you have whole peppercorns and the recipe says ground

Ratio (Computed): McCormick’s conversion is 1 teaspoon of peppercorns to 1½ teaspoons of ground pepper.¹² That’s a volume figure: ground pepper takes up more room than the corns it came from. It says nothing about strength. Freshly ground pepper will smell stronger than an old jar of ground, so start below the full amount.

Substitutes that work less well than their reputation

Substitute	What the sources say	Use it?
Pink peppercorns	Not related to pepper; Katzer says they are named for their shape only, and calls them sweet and aromatic, like juniper.¹³ Atlas Obscura calls the flavor only slightly peppery.¹⁴ Pink pepper is in the cashew family;¹³ Atlas Obscura found reports of a reaction limited to one patient with a tree-nut allergy.¹⁴	For color and perfume, not bite
Papaya seeds	Chowhound’s writer describes dried, ground papaya seeds as sitting somewhere between black pepper and horseradish, slightly bitter and mustardy, and gives no amount.¹⁵ A widely repeated claim says their flavor is almost identical to black pepper’s; no source we found supports that.	A curiosity, not a match
Szechuan pepper	Its signature is a tingling numbness from hydroxy-α-sanshool,¹⁶ a different sensation from pepper’s heat.	Not a black pepper swap
Capers	Sometimes suggested as peppery; no source we found describes capers as tasting of pepper.	No

How cooking changes the swap

In a 1992 study of spices boiled in curry for 15 to 30 minutes, 50 to 60% of the piperine was lost.¹⁷ That’s one reason to add black pepper, or white pepper in its place, near the end of cooking.

What isn’t known

Named sources disagree on whether white pepper is milder or just less aromatic (see the table above).
You’ll sometimes read that 3 tablespoons of brined green peppercorns equal 1 ounce of black peppercorns. We found no source for that figure.

Standard for Black, White and Green Peppers, CXS 326-2017, Codex Alimentarius. fao.org · Standard ↩ ↩² ↩³
“Black pepper”, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩
Black Pepper (Piper nigrum), Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³
100 Emergency Ingredient Substitutions, Better Homes & Gardens. static.onecms.io · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
“Substituting Black Pepper for White Pepper”, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩
Jared Rydelek, Long Pepper, Atlas Obscura. atlasobscura.com · Publication ↩
Gernot Katzer, Grains of Paradise (Aframomum melegueta), Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩
Cubeba, The Dispensatory of the United States of America, 1918 (transcription, Henriette’s Herbal Homepage). henriettes-herb.com · Reference work ↩
Gernot Katzer, Cubeb Pepper (Piper cubeba), Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩
Pepper: Processing and Value Addition, Kerala Agricultural University. celkau.in · Reference work ↩
Suwanee, Jungle curry, Simply Suwanee. simplysuwanee.com · Publication ↩
How to Grind Your Own Spices, McCormick, 2025. mccormick.com · Merchant ↩
Gernot Katzer, Pink Pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius and S. molle), Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Anne Ewbank, “When People Panicked Over Pink Peppercorns”, Atlas Obscura, 2018. atlasobscura.com · Publication ↩ ↩²
Jennifer M. McNeill, “The Seeds From This Tropical Fruit Are A Great Alternative For Black Pepper”, Chowhound, 2025. chowhound.com · Publication ↩
Zhang et al., Zanthoxylum bungeanum Maxim. (Rutaceae): A Systematic Review, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2017. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩
Srinivasan, Sambaiah and Chandrasekhara, “Loss of active principles of common spices during domestic cooking”, Food Chemistry, 1992. agris.fao.org · Peer-reviewed ↩

Black Pepper Substitutes, Ranked by the Job Pepper Is Doing