Chervil vs. Cilantro: Two Parsley-Family Herbs with Very Different Chemistry

Chervil tastes delicate and faintly of anise, while cilantro tastes bright and citrusy to some people and like soap to others. Both are soft-leaved herbs in the parsley family, Apiaceae, and both usually go in at the last minute, but that’s about where the resemblance ends. Chervil’s oil is led by methyl chavicol, also called estragole, the same compound that leads tarragon’s. Cilantro’s smell comes from a group of aldehydes, the same compounds that make it taste of soap to some people,¹ and none of them turned up in the one chervil oil sample analyzed.² They come from different kitchens and rarely stand in for each other well.

Side by side

The two compound rows come from different studies of different samples, measured different ways. Read them as which compounds lead in each herb, not as percentages to compare.

Flavor, and the chemistry behind it

Chervil. PROSEA characterizes chervil oil by three constituents: undecane, methyl chavicol and methyl eugenol.³ In one analysis of oil from chervil growing wild in Turkey, methyl chavicol made up 83.10%, 1-allyl-2,4-dimethoxybenzene 15.15% and undecane 1.75%.² Methyl chavicol is also the main compound in tarragon oil, at 60–75% according to the EU Scientific Committee on Food,⁵ so chervil and tarragon share their lead compound. No source measures how much of chervil’s anise note comes from it. The chervil analysis covers one wild population, read from an abstract, so those numbers describe one sample.

Cilantro. PROSEA says aldehydes make up more than 80% of the leaf’s volatile oil, with (E)-2-dodecenal (15.6%), (E)-2-tetradecenal (12.7%) and (E)-2-decenal (12.1%) the largest.⁴ Eriksson and colleagues note that the (E)-2-alkenals in cilantro are described as soapy, fatty, “like cilantro” or pungent. In a genetic study of 14,604 people of European ancestry, they linked reports of a soapy taste to a variant near a cluster of smell-receptor genes, one of which, OR6A2, binds several of cilantro’s aldehydes. Genes are only part of the story, though. The heritability tagged by common variants was about 0.087.¹

What that means for a cook. By our math, the three compounds in the Turkish chervil analysis add up to 100% of the oil, and none of them is one of cilantro’s aldehydes.² So, as far as that one sample shows, chervil doesn’t carry the compounds behind cilantro’s soapy taste. We found no study testing whether people who dislike cilantro like chervil.

How each is used

Chervil. Chervil goes with fish, salads, soups, eggs, meat dishes, casseroles, sauces and stuffings for poultry and fish, and eggs are a standout, especially omelets. It’s one of the classic French fines herbes, a mix that commonly includes parsley, chives, tarragon and chervil, though the exact herbs vary. You’ll often see chervil listed in herbes de Provence, but we found no source for that. Chervil goes in raw or at the very end, often by the handful, and it’s lovely in herb butters and with potatoes and spring vegetables. See chervil uses and cooking with chervil.

Cilantro. It’s essential in many Latin American, Caribbean and Asian dishes, especially Thai and Vietnamese, and it goes into Mexican salsas and meat dishes and some Chinese soups. Arabic cooking uses both leaves and seeds in pickles, curries and chutneys. In China and Thailand, the aromatic taproots are eaten as a vegetable. And of course it gets scattered over tacos and folded into guacamole. See cooking with cilantro.

Timing. Both go in late. Wisconsin Extension says to add cilantro at the very end so it doesn’t overcook,⁷ and LSU AgCenter lists it among the delicate herbs to add in the last minute or two, since long heat costs flavor and aroma.⁸ We found no source that tests chervil the same way, but cooks handle it the same.

Finding them. PROSEA calls chervil of minor importance in trade, though it’s now grown all over the world.³ Cilantro is the one you’ll find in most grocery stores.

Can one stand in for the other?

Not well. The flavors come from different compounds.

Treat both amounts as cautious starting points. For closer matches, see chervil substitutes, which ranks a parsley-and-tarragon mix first, and cilantro substitutes, which ranks culantro and parsley.

Safety

Chervil. Chervil is generally recognized as safe in the United States (GRAS 2279). PROSEA notes that methyl chavicol and methyl eugenol, two of its oil compounds, are carcinogenic in rats.³ The EU Scientific Committee on Food concluded in 2001 that estragole is genotoxic and carcinogenic, mainly based on studies in which mice were given it orally, and recommended reducing exposure.⁵ It gave no figure for chervil used as a kitchen herb.

Cilantro. The FDA links recurring outbreaks of cyclosporiasis in the United States in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 to fresh cilantro from the state of Puebla, Mexico. Under Import Alert 24-23, fresh cilantro from Puebla offered for entry from April 1 through August 31 of each year can be detained without physical examination.⁶

What isn’t known

• No study compares chervil and cilantro directly, in flavor or in chemistry.
• Chervil’s oil figures come from one wild Turkish population, read from an abstract.² No published figure gives the oil content of fresh chervil leaves.
• No study tests whether people who find cilantro soapy dislike chervil too.

Related

• Chervil and cilantro, the full profiles
• Chervil substitutes and cilantro substitutes
• Chervil vs. parsley and cilantro vs. parsley
• Coriander vs. cilantro and culantro vs. cilantro
• Fines herbes and tarragon
• Too much cilantro