Cooking With Cinnamon Basil: Dos and Don'ts

A basil that smells like cinnamon belongs at dessert as much as at dinner. Cinnamon basil is just as good steeped into a syrup for iced tea or chopped into a pound cake as it is on a tomato salad. It’s a cultivar of sweet basil, Ocimum basilicum, not a separate species, and it cooks like any basil. Just don’t expect it to stand in for ground cinnamon. For what it is and what’s in it, see the cinnamon basil profile.

What you are working with

The cinnamon in the name is a resemblance. What sets this basil apart is methyl cinnamate,¹ while true cinnamon’s bark oil is dominated by cinnamaldehyde.² So cinnamon basil adds a cinnamon-like note, but it won’t taste like ground cinnamon, and it won’t stand in for the spice in a recipe built around it.

The Herb Society of America describes the leaves as having a spicy smell that leaves a warm feeling on the tongue.³

Where it works

Use	Source
Teas and baked goods	The Herb Society calls the cultivar good in both³
Desserts	The Herb Society suggests lemon and cinnamon basils as additions to desserts³
Herb syrups	The Herb Society’s basil syrup steeps 8 to 10 sprigs of anise, cinnamon, green or lemon basil³
Anywhere sweet basil goes	Same species;¹ expect a warmer result

Teas and syrups. Steeping is the easiest way in, since it pulls the scent into liquid without cooking the leaves for long. The Herb Society’s basil syrup calls for about 8 to 10 sprigs of basil and lists cinnamon basil among the options.³ Use a syrup like that to sweeten iced tea, lemonade or a cocktail.

Baked goods and desserts. The Herb Society’s guide calls cinnamon basil good in baked goods and puts it in recipes like a pound cake and muffins; one calls for 2 tablespoons of finely chopped cinnamon basil.³ Fruit is the other natural partner. Peaches, plums, berries or melon all make sense, though no source we found pairs them specifically.

Drinks. Basil and mint belong to the same plant family, the mint family (Lamiaceae), and you can muddle cinnamon basil in place of mint in a mojito-style drink. We didn’t find a published tested recipe for that, so taste as you go.

Savory food. It goes where sweet basil goes: salads, tomato dishes, stir-fries, and the pizzas, pasta, chicken and cheese dishes sweet basil goes into in Italian cooking. The warmer note also suits roasted squash, pork and grilled fruit salsas.

When to add it

LSU AgCenter puts basil among the delicate herbs that should go in a minute or two before the end of cooking, or get sprinkled on just before serving.⁴ That’s for basil in general; we didn’t find anyone who’s measured cinnamon basil on its own. For syrups and teas, steep it in hot liquid off the heat.

Leaves and stems

America’s Test Kitchen tasted basil stems against leaves. Tasters found the tender, thinner, younger stems clean and sweet, about like the leaves, while bitterness started to take over in the thicker stems, especially the lower part of the central stem. In a side-by-side test of two batches of pesto, tasters couldn’t tell them apart. ATK’s advice: use the tender stems, but don’t put thick stems in pesto.⁵ That test used ordinary basil, and the same handling makes a sensible default for cinnamon basil.

Keeping it fresh

Basil hates the cold. Rutgers Cooperative Extension gives 55°F as the best storage temperature for basil, and lists blackened leaves, discolored stems and lost aroma as signs of chilling injury. Rutgers also notes that standing the stems in water can cut down on water loss.⁶

At home, that points to a jar of water on the counter for a few days, the way many cooks keep basil. See how to store basil for how the methods compare.

Freezing. Oklahoma State Extension suggests blanching basil leaves for 15 seconds and plunging them into ice water before freezing, to stop enzyme reactions.⁷ Penn State Extension says you can use frozen herbs in the same proportion as fresh.⁸ Freezing chopped leaves in ice cube trays works too. If you freeze basil in oil, be careful: Oregon State Extension says herb-and-oil mixtures must be refrigerated and used within 4 days, or frozen for longer storage, because of the botulism risk.⁹ See can you freeze basil?.

Drying. America’s Test Kitchen lists basil among the herbs that are better fresh, since delicate herbs like it are much weaker once dried.¹⁰ See how to dry basil, dried herbs vs. fresh and how to rehydrate herbs.

“Comparative evaluation of North American commercially available Ocimum basil cultivars”, Table 1, Perspectives on New Crops and New Uses (1999), Purdue NewCROP. hort.purdue.edu · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩²
Cinnamomum verum, PROSEA Handbook No. 13: Spices. prosea.prota4u.org · Reference work ↩
Michele Meyers, Basil: An Herb Society of America Guide, The Herb Society of America, 2003. herbsociety.org · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
“Flavorful Herbs”, LSU AgCenter. lsuagcenter.com · Reference work ↩
“Using Basil Stems in Recipes”, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩
Fact Sheet FS1283, Rutgers Cooperative Extension, 2018. njaes.rutgers.edu · Reference work ↩
“Freezing Herbs”, Oklahoma State University Extension, 2026. extension.okstate.edu · Reference work ↩
Martha Zepp, “Freezing Herbs”, Penn State Extension, 2025. extension.psu.edu · Reference work ↩
Carolyn Raab and Margy Woodburn, “Herbs and vegetables in oil” (SP 50-701), Oregon State University Extension Service. extension.oregonstate.edu · Reference work ↩
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

Ocimum basilicum (PROSEA), N.O. Aguilar, Pham Truong Thi Tho and L.P.A. Oyen, Plant Resources of South-East Asia, via Pl@ntUse. uses.plantnet-project.org
Basil (revised by Sohini Dasgupta, updated 19 Sep 2026), Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com

Cooking With Cinnamon Basil: Desserts, Drinks, Stems and Storage