Cardamom vs. Cloves: Two Plants, Two Chemistries, One Spice Rack

Cardamom and cloves share a shelf, a garam masala and plenty of recipes, but they come from unrelated plants and smell completely different. Cardamom is the fruit of a ginger-family plant from southwest India, and its oil is led by 1,8-cineole, the source of its cool, camphor-like lift, and alpha-terpinyl acetate. Cloves are the dried flower buds of a myrtle-family tree from the Maluku islands, and their oil is mostly eugenol. So each one can only partly stand in for the other, and for cloves, allspice is the closer stand-in.

Side by side

The oil figures in the table come from different reference works and studies, and they describe different plant parts. Use them to see which compound leads in each spice, not to compare strength head to head. The flavor descriptions line up with the chemistry: 1,8-cineole has a camphor-like odor,⁷ and cloves are built almost entirely on eugenol. Cloves are strong in aroma and hot and pungent in taste.

The differences that change a dish

What you are buying

Cardamom pods are fruits. The seeds inside are angled, about 3 mm long and dark brown, 15 to 20 to a fruit. The fruits ripen very unevenly, so PROSEA says they should be picked one by one at the right stage, fully developed but still green.¹ You’ll often see this hand labor given as the reason cardamom costs so much. PROSEA confirms the high price but doesn’t connect the two, and neither does any other source we found.

A clove is a whole flower bud. The flower cluster is picked just before the first buds open. The English name comes, through Old French, from the Latin word for a nail, “so called from its shape.”⁸

Two kinds of cardamom, one kind of clove

“Cardamom” on its own means green cardamom, Elettaria cardamomum. Black cardamom is a different plant, Amomum subulatum, native from Nepal to central China. The Spice House says black cardamom is smoke-dried, which makes it a better fit for braised meats and savory recipes.⁹ For a clove comparison, green is the one that matters. See black vs. green cardamom.

Where the eugenol goes

Eugenol is what makes cloves taste like cloves, and other spices have it too. It’s one of the three main constituents of allspice oil, another myrtle-family spice.¹⁰ Ceylon cinnamon bark oil carries eugenol at 5 to 18%,¹¹ while Chinese cassia bark oil has only traces of it.¹² Cardamom’s oil is led by other compounds entirely. In practice, cloves sit comfortably next to allspice and cinnamon, and cardamom brings something none of them has.

The myrtle family also includes the eucalyptus genus. That’s a family tie, not a flavor one. The cool, eucalyptus-like note in this pair belongs to cardamom’s 1,8-cineole, not to cloves.

Strength in the pot

How much you can use differs a lot, though no study measures it. Madhur Jaffrey’s garam masala, published by Saveur, calls for a quarter cup of cardamom seeds.¹³ A single clove is noticeable in a pot of rice. With whole cloves, the safe habit is to count them in so you can count them out.

Can one stand in for the other?

Only partly. Both show up in garam masala, so in a mixed spice blend one can cover for the other. Where either one is the lead flavor, people will notice the swap.

• Cloves in place of cardamom. The Spice House lists cloves among its pantry substitutes for cardamom. Ratio (Attributed): For baking it recommends a mix of equal parts ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon, used 1:1 for the cardamom. For cloves on their own, it says to “cut the amount to half or three quarters because cloves can overpower a dish.”¹⁴ None of these will give you cardamom’s cool, floral lift. See cardamom substitutes.
• Cardamom in place of cloves. Cardamom has no eugenol to offer, so it changes the dish instead of imitating cloves. Allspice is the closer clove stand-in, and two sources swap it 1:1; see clove substitutes. Ratio (Method): If cardamom is all you’ve got and cloves are one spice among several, start with an equal amount of ground cardamom and taste. Where cloves are the point, as in a clove-studded ham, cardamom won’t do the job.

Clove oil is not the spice

The European Medicines Agency’s monograph on clove oil, a traditional herbal medicine for the mouth and throat, says it isn’t recommended for children and adolescents under 18.⁶ That’s about the concentrated oil, not cloves used as a spice. Never use clove oil in place of ground cloves in a recipe. It’s a different product. More on the cloves page.

What isn’t known

• No sensory study compares cardamom and cloves directly, so the flavor row and the strength notes are descriptions, not measurements.

• We found no dated retail price comparison. PROSEA’s “highest-priced” remark is the only sourced statement on cost.

• Cardamom’s oil varies a lot by sample. One 2025 study found 1,8-cineole anywhere from under 1% to about 31% across eight commercial samples,³ so one jar can be much more camphor-forward than another.

Related

• Cardamom and cloves, the full profiles
• Cardamom substitutes and clove substitutes
• Cardamom pods vs. seeds and ground vs. whole cloves
• Allspice vs. cloves, nutmeg vs. cloves, cloves vs. cinnamon, cloves vs. star anise
• Black vs. green cardamom
• Cooking with cardamom, cooking with cloves, too much cardamom, too much clove
• Garam masala