Culantro: Flavor, Uses and How It Differs From Cilantro

Culantro smells like cilantro, only stronger. It’s a different plant, though: the long, saw-edged leaf of Eryngium foetidum, a low tropical American plant in the carrot family. It’s the recao in Puerto Rican sofrito and the ngò gai on a Vietnamese pho plate. And the two leaves have more in common than a smell: they share the same leading aroma compound.

At a glance


Botanical name	Eryngium foetidum L.
Plant family	Apiaceae (carrot and parsley family)
Part used	Leaves, fresh; flower spikes in some sofrito
Native range	Mexico to tropical America (Kew)
Other names	Recao (Puerto Rico), sawtooth coriander, long coriander, fitweed, black Benny, ngò gai (Vietnam)
Key aroma compound	(E)-2-dodecenal, 59.7% of one Malaysian leaf oil sample¹
Production figures	No statistics; mostly gathered wild or grown in gardens and traded locally¹
Forms sold	Fresh leaves; frozen ground leaf for sofrito makers in Puerto Rico²

Measured values

10 figures, sourced

Measure	Value	Scope	Source
(E)-2-Dodecenal	59.7 % of leaf oil	one Malaysian leaf oil sample summarized by PROSEA	uses.plantnet-project.org
Storage life, packaged	up to 2 weeks at 10 °C	packaged leaves (PROSEA)	uses.plantnet-project.org
Storage life, packaged	4 days at 28 °C	packaged leaves (PROSEA)	uses.plantnet-project.org
Water Nutrient	84.5 g per 100 g	culantro leaves, per 100 g edible portion (PROSEA)	uses.plantnet-project.org
Protein Nutrient	2.9 g per 100 g	culantro leaves, per 100 g edible portion (PROSEA)	uses.plantnet-project.org
Carbohydrate Nutrient	9.2 g per 100 g	culantro leaves, per 100 g edible portion (PROSEA)	uses.plantnet-project.org
Fiber Nutrient	2.0 g per 100 g	culantro leaves, per 100 g edible portion (PROSEA)	uses.plantnet-project.org
Calcium Nutrient	99 mg per 100 g	culantro leaves, per 100 g edible portion (PROSEA)	uses.plantnet-project.org
Phosphorus Nutrient	98 mg per 100 g	culantro leaves, per 100 g edible portion (PROSEA)	uses.plantnet-project.org
Iron Nutrient	13 mg per 100 g	culantro leaves, per 100 g edible portion (PROSEA)	uses.plantnet-project.org

Each figure is quoted as its source states it, with the samples or standard it applies to. Where sources differ, both are shown; nothing is averaged. All measured values

What culantro is

Eryngium foetidum is a biennial of the wet tropics. Young plants form a rosette of leaves. PROSEA gives the blade as 5 to 32 cm long and 1 to 4 cm wide, with a spiny, toothed edge.¹ Whole leaves can be tough and are best chopped fine.

Culantro and cilantro are different plants. Cilantro is the leaf of coriander, Coriandrum sativum; see cilantro and culantro vs. cilantro.

Where it comes from

The sources agree culantro is a plant of tropical America, but they differ at the edges:

Source	Native range
Kew Plants of the World Online	Mexico to tropical America; its native list also includes Java and Sumatra³
PROSEA	Origin unknown; native to Central and South America, from southern Mexico to Brazil and from Cuba to Trinidad¹
University of Puerto Rico	Tropical America and the West Indies²

PROSEA says the Chinese brought it to Southeast Asia as a substitute for coriander.¹ Kew lists it as introduced in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, India, several West African countries, Hawaii, Florida and Georgia, among other places.³ The two disagree on whether culantro is native to Java and Sumatra, and we’re not picking a side.

Flavor and aroma

The leaves are aromatic and smell like coriander leaf (cilantro), but they taste stronger. We couldn’t trace the often-repeated claim that culantro is “ten times” stronger than cilantro to any measurement. Think of it as a louder, greener, more pungent cilantro.

The compounds

The leaf oil is mostly aldehydes. In a Malaysian sample summarized by PROSEA, (E)-2-dodecenal made up 59.7% of the oil, with 2,3,6-trimethylbenzaldehyde and dodecanal the only other components above 5%.¹ The roots and seeds have different oils.

Cilantro has the same compound. PROSEA’s coriander entry lists (E)-2-dodecenal at 15.6% of the leaf oil, the largest single component, among aldehydes it describes as having a bug-like odor.⁴ The two figures come from different samples and methods, so they show shared chemistry, not a measured ratio of strength.

How culantro is used

Puerto Rico. Here it’s called recao, and the leaves are essential to many traditional dishes. Culantro is a key ingredient in sofrito. In 2001 the University of Puerto Rico counted about 25 companies on the island making sofrito, also called recaíto, with significant amounts of recao. Some makers use the flower spike, which the bulletin calls more aromatic, though it adds that most industries prefer the leaf.²
Vietnam. Andrea Nguyen’s pho garnish plate has 3 or 4 culantro (ngò gai) leaves alongside mint, Thai basil and rice paddy herb. She describes it as a hot-weather herb with a strong, slightly sweet cilantro flavor.⁵
Southeast Asia generally. It goes into soups, curries, stews, rice and fish dishes, and tender young leaves are also eaten raw or cooked as a vegetable.
Trade. Trinidad exports culantro to North America and Europe.¹ It’s usually sold at Vietnamese, Latin and Caribbean markets.

The leaves are tough, so cooks usually chop them fine or blend them into a seasoning base like sofrito, and many add culantro earlier in cooking than they would cilantro.

Growing, buying and storage

Culantro handles heat and does best in shade, which helps keep it from bolting. Growers usually pick the oldest leaves near the base and let the younger ones mature.⁶ The Puerto Rico bulletin notes that leaves from plants grown in full sun are much more aromatic than shade-grown ones.²

The leaves wilt fast and should get to market soon after harvest. Here’s how long the sources say they keep:

Condition	How long it keeps	Source
Packaged, 10 °C	Up to 2 weeks	PROSEA¹
Packaged, 28 °C	4 days	PROSEA¹
In plastic bags in the refrigerator	Several days	University of Puerto Rico²

For longer keeping, the Puerto Rico bulletin says to grind and freeze the leaves, which are then sold as raw material to sofrito makers.²

Nutrition

PROSEA gives the composition of the leaves per 100 g edible portion:¹

Component	Per 100 g
Water	84.5 g
Protein	2.9 g
Carbohydrate	9.2 g
Fiber	2.0 g
Calcium	99 mg
Phosphorus	98 mg
Iron	13 mg

PROSEA singles out the iron as especially high.¹ It lists no vitamin values, and we found no USDA entry for culantro, so we couldn’t check claims that it’s a good source of vitamins A, C or B vitamins.

Safety and health claims

PROSEA records traditional medicinal uses in Central and South America, including the leaves as a remedy for colds and fever and a whole-plant decoction said to lower blood pressure.¹ Those are reports of traditional use, not tested findings, and we make no claim that culantro treats or prevents anything. The name “fitweed” is widely said to come from use against seizures, but we couldn’t find a source for that use. We found no regulator assessment or recall involving culantro.

Substitutes and comparisons

Cilantro, used generously and added late, is the usual stand-in. See culantro substitutes for ranked options and culantro vs. cilantro for the side-by-side. Related pages:

M.H. van den Bergh, Eryngium foetidum, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²
Luis Reinaldo Santiago Santos, “La producción de recao o culantro (Eryngium foetidum L.) en Puerto Rico”, Estación Experimental Agrícola, Universidad de Puerto Rico, 2001. uprm.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Eryngium foetidum L., Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. powo.science.kew.org · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Coriandrum sativum, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩
Andrea Nguyen, “Pho Garnish Plate”, from The Pho Cookbook, via The Splendid Table. splendidtable.org · Publication ↩
“Culantro”, Gardening Solutions, University of Florida IFAS Extension. gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu · Reference work ↩