Cooking With Caraway Seeds: Toasting, Grinding and Where They Belong

If you’ve had seeded rye bread, you know caraway: a smell a bit like anise, with a warm, slightly sharp taste. It’s assertive and doesn’t harmonize with most other spices,¹ so it usually takes the lead against bread, cabbage, potatoes or meat. Once ground, its flavor fades fast, and in translated Indian recipes “caraway” may really mean cumin. For the plant, its chemistry and its history, see the caraway seeds profile.

At a glance

Toasting

You can use caraway straight from the jar, but toasting makes it stronger, according to Susan Jung in the South China Morning Post. Her method: shake the seeds constantly in a small, dry skillet over a medium flame until they darken slightly and smell more fragrant.²

You’ll often see an instruction to toast them over low heat for three minutes. We couldn’t find a source for that timing. Go by color and smell, and tip the seeds onto a plate as soon as they’re done so the hot pan doesn’t keep cooking them.

Toasting is optional. America’s Test Kitchen’s deli rye whisks the whole seeds into the flour with no toasting at all.³

Whole or ground

Most caraway is used whole. Jung says the seeds generally go in whole, and once ground the flavor fades quickly, so grind just before you need it.² That makes whole seed the form to buy and keep. PROSEA notes that the dried fruit stores and travels very well.⁵

When you do want it ground, for a rub, a sausage mix or a smooth sauce, a mortar and pestle or an electric spice grinder will both do it. You may read that crushing releases more flavor than grinding; we found no source that tests it.

Removing whole seeds. Whole seeds stay whole in a dish. If you want caraway’s flavor in a broth or braise without the seeds, tie them in cheesecloth and lift the bundle out before serving. Saveur’s choucroute garnie uses the same trick for its juniper, cloves, garlic and bay leaf.⁶ Whether you like chewing on whole seeds is up to you.

Where caraway belongs

• Rye bread. Caraway almost always goes into rye bread. Andrew Janjigian’s Deli Rye Bread for America’s Test Kitchen uses 1 tablespoon of caraway seeds per loaf, whisked into the flours with the yeast.³
• Sauerkraut and cabbage. Traditional sauerkraut is always flavored with caraway, and vegetables, especially potatoes and cabbage, are good matches.
• Southern German and Austrian cooking. Caraway is the spice that gives that food its characteristic flavor, whether meat, vegetables or rye bread.
• Cheese. Some Central European cheeses contain caraway seeds. Meat dishes, breads and cheese are among its main uses.
• Baking. Caraway is one of the essential ingredients in old-fashioned seed cake.
• Fish. It’s often among the spices used to flavor gravlax.
• Spirits. Its oil flavors aquavit and kümmel.
• North Africa. In Tunisia, caraway goes into harissa, the chile paste.

Indian recipes. Katzer warns that many languages have no specific word for caraway and use the word for cumin instead.¹ So an English translation of an Indian recipe that says “caraway” may mean cumin, and the reverse. Check the recipe’s context before you reach for the jar.

What it goes with

Caraway doesn’t harmonize with most other spices.¹ In practice it usually leads: one dominant seasoning against bread, cabbage, potatoes or meat, with garlic, onion, juniper or black pepper in support. Those partners come from the dishes above, not from any published pairing study. You’ll also read that caraway pairs especially well with dill, parsley and cumin as fellow members of the carrot family (Apiaceae). None of the sources we checked makes that pairing claim, so take it as opinion.

Substitutes, briefly

Caraway sometimes gets suggested as a stand-in for anise, fennel or cumin. The sources point the other way. The Spice House calls fennel seed the closest substitute for caraway, and says cumin can stand in but is more pungent than fennel, so go easier with it.⁷ We found no source recommending caraway as a replacement for any of those. See caraway seed substitutes, caraway vs. cumin and caraway vs. fennel seeds.

How much to use

Ratio (Attributed): ATK’s deli rye uses 1 tablespoon of seeds in a single loaf.³

Ratio (Method): For a pot of sauerkraut, a braise or roasted potatoes, start with about a teaspoon of whole seed and add more next time if you want it stronger. Caraway is assertive and doesn’t blend easily, so it’s easier to add than to take away.

Storage

PROSEA says the dried fruit keeps well,⁵ but no regulator or standards body gives a shelf life. We couldn’t trace claims that whole caraway lasts “up to two years,” or that the fridge extends it. Keep whole seeds sealed, cool and dark, and crush one to check: if it smells faint, replace it. Ground caraway fades fast,² so buy it whole.

Safety

Cooking amounts of caraway raise no specific safety concern in the sources we checked. The European Medicines Agency’s monograph on caraway as a traditional herbal medicine doesn’t recommend medicinal use during pregnancy and breastfeeding.⁸ That’s about medicinal doses, not seeds in your bread.

Related

• Caraway seeds, the full profile
• Caraway seed substitutes
• Caraway vs. cumin and caraway vs. fennel seeds
• Pickling spice