Cilantro Substitutes, Whether You’ve Run Out or Can’t Stand It

Out of cilantro? Culantro is the closest match: it smells like cilantro but tastes stronger. Flat-leaf parsley is the fallback when you can’t find it. But if cilantro tastes like soap to you, you want the opposite, something that doesn’t share its aroma compounds at all, like parsley, Thai basil or mint. Either way, the right pick also depends on whether the cilantro goes in raw at the end or gets cooked into a soup or curry.

Quick answer

How the ratios on this page are labeled

Every ratio carries one of four labels.

• Computed: based on a measurable physical relationship, such as converting fresh herbs to dried.
• 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.

The attributed ratios below are one food writer’s rules of thumb, not measurements of flavor strength.

If you like cilantro and it is a raw finishing herb

In Mexican cooking, cilantro goes into salsas and meat dishes, and the young leaves are widely used in Latin American, Indian and Chinese dishes too. Here you want that same bright, aldehyde-driven smell, added raw at the end.

1. Culantro

Culantro is a different plant in the same family, and its chemistry is the closest match: in one sample, its leaf oil was led by the same compound that leads cilantro’s.¹² Its leaves smell like coriander, and the Chinese brought it to Southeast Asia as a coriander substitute.¹

The University of Florida says culantro smells like cilantro but has a stronger flavor, and that its tough leaves are best finely chopped.³ Andrea Nguyen describes a strong, slightly sweet cilantro flavor, and says you’ll usually find it at Vietnamese, Latin and Caribbean markets.⁴ You’ll often read that culantro is “ten times” stronger than cilantro. No measurement backs that up.

Ratio (Method): UF calls the flavor stronger, so start with about half the cilantro amount, chopped very fine, and add more to taste.

2. Flat-leaf parsley

PROSEA says parsley plays a role in Western cooking much like coriander leaves do in Asia, and calls the flat-leaved type stronger flavored than the curly.⁵ It looks the part and stays fresh and green, but it doesn’t taste like cilantro. Sonja Overhiser of A Couple Cooks puts it plainly: parsley is grassy and citrusy, but it doesn’t taste like cilantro.⁶ Parsley’s flavor is warm but slightly burning and bitter.

Ratio (Method): A Couple Cooks lists parsley first but gives no amount.⁶ Start with the same amount as the cilantro. A squeeze of lime helps fill in some of cilantro’s brightness in salsa or guacamole.

3. Pápalo

University of Maryland Extension’s Maryland Grows blog says pápalo doesn’t taste exactly like cilantro but it’s close enough to work as an alternative. It warns against overdoing it until you’re used to the flavor, and says to use it raw or add it at the very end of cooking. It’s a hot-weather plant, handy in summer when cilantro, a cool-weather herb, bolts.⁷

Ratio (Method): Given the advice not to overdo it, start with about a third of the cilantro amount and taste.

4. Rau ram (Vietnamese coriander)

Rau ram tastes of lemon and coriander leaves with a slight radish-like, pungent aftertaste. PROSEA notes that long cooking destroys the flavor, so add it at the end.⁸

Ratio (Method): Start with about half the cilantro amount and taste, since the radish-like bite builds.

If the dish is Southeast Asian

In pho, noodle salads and fresh rolls, cilantro is one herb on a plate of several. Andrea Nguyen’s pho garnish plate has culantro alongside mint and Thai basil,⁴ so the other herbs on that plate can cover for one another.

Thai basil or mint

Ratio (Attributed): A Couple Cooks suggests Thai basil or mint for Southeast Asian recipes, 1:1.⁶

Thai basil brings a related brightness by a different route. In a 2018 study of basils grown in Chiang Mai, Thai basil oil was linked to anise, lime-like and fresh aromas.⁹ Expect anise and lime, not cilantro.

Culantro and rau ram, above, also suit these dishes.

If cilantro is cooked into soups, curries or stews

Cilantro doesn’t take long cooking well. LSU AgCenter lists it among the delicate herbs best added in the last minute or two, because long cooking costs flavor and aroma.¹⁰ When a recipe cooks it in, a sturdier green leaf can do the job.

1. Celery leaves

Ratio (Attributed): A Couple Cooks says celery leaves have a similar fresh flavor and look and work as a 1:1 swap, and suggests them for soups and curries.⁶

They smell different, though. Celery leaves give you green, savory freshness, not cilantro’s citrus.

2. Culantro

Culantro also goes into soups, curries, stews, rice and fish dishes.

Ratio (Method): As above, start with about half the cilantro amount.

If cilantro tastes like soap to you

The soapy taste is partly genetic. In a genome-wide study, Eriksson and colleagues found a variant in a cluster of smell-receptor genes, including one with high binding specificity for several of the aldehydes that give cilantro its odor. Genes explain only part of it, though.¹¹

The chemistry hints at which substitutes to skip, though we found no test of this directly. Culantro’s leaf oil is led by the same compound that leads cilantro’s,¹² so it may well taste soapy to the same people. Rau ram is less clear-cut. Its oil is mostly a different kind of aldehyde, and Eriksson’s team counts that kind among cilantro’s key aroma components too, but the soapy description goes with the kind that leads cilantro’s oil.¹¹ To be safe, avoid both.

Parsley, Thai basil or mint, or nothing

Ratio (Attributed for Thai basil and mint): Flat-leaf parsley at the same amount gives you the green, fresh look. Thai basil or mint at 1:1 suits Southeast Asian dishes (Attributed to A Couple Cooks). A Couple Cooks’ last option is to leave cilantro out entirely.⁶ A salsa or guacamole with lime, onion and chile still works without it.

Dried cilantro and coriander seed

Dried cilantro (Computed, with a caveat): The general extension rule is 1 tablespoon of finely cut fresh herbs to 1 teaspoon of crumbled dried,¹⁰ and America’s Test Kitchen’s testing found that 1 part dried to 3 parts fresh came closest to equal strength for herbs in general.¹² But ATK’s Danielle Lapierre lists cilantro among the herbs that are better fresh, saying they’re much weaker in flavor when dried.¹³ None of our sources measures how much aroma dried cilantro loses, so treat the 3:1 figure as a starting point and expect less flavor.

Coriander seed (not a substitute): The seed comes from the same plant but tastes nothing like the leaf. PROSEA says the aldehydes in the oil disappear as the fruit ripens, and the smell changes noticeably.² See coriander vs. cilantro.

What isn’t known

• No study has tested whether people who find cilantro soapy also find culantro or rau ram soapy. The advice above comes from shared compounds, not a taste test.
• The Eriksson study doesn’t say what share of people taste soap, and neither do we.
• We didn’t find anyone who’s measured aroma loss when cilantro is dried.

Related

• Cilantro, cooking with cilantro and too much cilantro
• Culantro, culantro vs. cilantro and culantro substitutes
• Cilantro vs. parsley, basil vs. cilantro and chervil vs. cilantro
• Thai basil, mint, parsley and celery leaves
• Coriander, coriander vs. cilantro and dried vs. fresh cilantro

Footnotes

1. M.H. van den Bergh, Eryngium foetidum, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Coriandrum sativum, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. “Culantro”, Gardening Solutions, University of Florida IFAS Extension. gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu · Reference work ↩

4. Andrea Nguyen, Pho Garnish Plate, from The Pho Cookbook, via The Splendid Table, 2017. splendidtable.org · Publication ↩ ↩²

5. I.B. Ipor and L.P.A. Oyen, Petroselinum crispum, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩

6. Sonja Overhiser, “Best Cilantro Substitute”, A Couple Cooks, 2026. acouplecooks.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

7. Erica Smith, “Papalo: the ‘summer cilantro’”, Maryland Grows, University of Maryland Extension, 2019. marylandgrows.umd.edu · Reference work ↩

8. L.P.A. Oyen and Dzuong Duc Huyen, Persicaria odorata, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩

9. Tangpao, Chung and Sommano, “Aromatic Profiles of Essential Oils from Five Commonly Used Thai Basils”, Foods, 2018. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩

10. “Flavorful Herbs”, LSU AgCenter. lsuagcenter.com · Reference work ↩ ↩²

11. Eriksson et al., “A genetic variant near olfactory receptor genes influences cilantro preference”, Flavour, 2012. link.springer.com · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩²

12. “Science: Substituting Dried Herbs for Fresh”, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩

13. Danielle Lapierre, “When You Should Actually Use Dried Herbs (and Which Ones to Avoid)”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2022. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩

Also drawn on

• Coriander, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com
• Cilantro, by Susan Mahr (posted 6 Feb 2017), Wisconsin Master Gardener Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension. mastergardener.extension.wisc.edu