Best Celery Flakes Substitutes (and How Much to Use)

Out of celery flakes? Grab a stalk of fresh celery: 1/4 cup chopped covers every 2 tablespoons of flakes. Celery flakes are just dried, chopped celery stalk, with a mild celery flavor. Celery seed is far stronger, so a pinch does it in a rub, and celery salt brings salt along with it, so the recipe’s own salt needs cutting.

Quick answer

What celery flakes are doing	Best substitute	Starting amount, per 2 tbsp flakes	Treatment
Flavor and soft pieces in soups, stews, stuffing, casseroles	Chopped fresh celery	1/4 cup	Attributed
Celery flavor in a dry rub, seasoning blend or dressing	Celery seed, ground	1/4 tsp, then taste	Method
Celery flavor plus salt	Celery salt, with the recipe’s salt cut	1/4 tsp, cutting about 1/8 tsp table salt	Method (flavor), Computed (salt)

How the ratios on this page are labeled

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 the flakes are flavoring a cooked dish

In soups, stews, braises, stuffing and casseroles, the flakes soften into small pieces of celery. Fresh celery does the same thing and is the closest match.

1. Fresh celery

Ratio (Attributed): McCormick says to use 2 tablespoons of its celery flakes in place of 1/4 cup of chopped fresh celery.¹ Flip that around and you get 1/4 cup of chopped celery for every 2 tablespoons of flakes, or 2 parts fresh to 1 part flakes by volume.

Chop the celery fine so it cooks in the same time as everything else. Fresh celery brings its own water. That hardly matters in a soup, but it can loosen a stuffing, so cut the liquid back a little if you need to.

One more difference: McCormick’s flakes list a sulfiting agent alongside the celery.² Fresh celery doesn’t have one, which may matter if you’re avoiding sulfites.

2. Fresh celery leaves

The leafy tops of a head of celery have the same flavor. Leaf celery is used as a flavoring, fresh or dried and powdered.³

Ratio (Method): Use chopped leaves in the same volume as the chopped stalk above, or mix leaves and stalk, and taste near the end of cooking.

If the flakes are flavoring a dry mix

In a rub, seasoning blend or dressing, flakes usually get ground or left to soften in the liquid. A dry, concentrated form of celery is easier to measure here.

1. Celery seed

Celery seed comes from the same plant, and it’s far stronger than the fresh plant. Katzer describes its aroma as similar to the leaf and root but much stronger.⁴ McCormick says its flavor “goes a long way” and suggests starting with a pinch.⁵

Ratio (Method): Start with 1/4 teaspoon of seed for every 2 tablespoons of flakes, ground if you don’t want visible seeds, then taste and add more. For comparison only, The Spice House swaps 2 tablespoons of minced celery tops for 1/2 teaspoon of seed;⁶ that figure is for fresh leaves, not dried flakes.

Celery seeds don’t look like flakes. You get small, dark seeds instead of pale green pieces. Whether that matters depends on the dish.

2. Celery powder

Celery powder comes in more than one form. A seasoning powder may be ground dried celery or ground celery seed, so read the label. Powders sold to meat processors for curing are a different product, made for their high nitrate content,⁷ and they’re not a seasoning substitute.

Ratio (Method): For a powder made from dried celery, start with about half the volume of flakes called for and taste. For a seed-based powder, start with the celery seed amount above.

If you also want salt

Celery salt

Celery salt is salt plus celery seed; McCormick’s lists just “Salt & Celery Seed.”⁸ It adds celery flavor and salt together, so you can’t turn up one without the other.

Salt adjustment (Computed): McCormick’s label gives 270 mg of sodium per 1/4 teaspoon of celery salt.⁸ The FDA says 2,300 mg of sodium is about 1 teaspoon of table salt,⁹ so 1/4 teaspoon of this celery salt has the sodium of just under 1/8 teaspoon of table salt. Cut that much salt from the recipe for each 1/4 teaspoon of celery salt you add.

Ratio (Method), celery flavor: Start with 1/4 teaspoon of celery salt per 2 tablespoons of flakes, and taste before adding more.

What isn’t known

McCormick’s flakes-to-fresh conversion is the maker’s figure for its own product, and we found no independent test of it.
No published figure gives the seed content of commercial celery salt.

McCormick Celery Flakes, product page, McCormick & Company. mccormick.com · Merchant ↩
McCormick Celery Flakes, retailer listing with label ingredients, Stop & Shop. stopandshop.com · Merchant ↩
Apium graveolens (PROSEA), Plant Resources of South-East Asia. uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩
Gernot Katzer, Celery (Apium graveolens), Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩
McCormick Whole Celery Seed, product page, McCormick & Company. mccormick.com · Merchant ↩
Celery Seed Substitute, The Spice House. thespicehouse.com · Merchant ↩
Bhusal and Muriana, Isolation and Characterization of Nitrate Reducing Bacteria, Applied Microbiology, 2021. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩
McCormick Celery Salt, label ingredients and Nutrition Facts as listed by Stop & Shop. stopandshop.com · Merchant ↩ ↩²
Sodium in Your Diet, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. fda.gov · Regulator ↩

Celery Flakes Substitutes: Fresh Celery, Celery Seed and More, With Amounts