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Dried Cilantro vs. Fresh: Why Drying Mutes It, and When Dried Is Worth Using

By · Reviewed · 10 sources

Dried Cilantro Vs Fresh

Reaching for the jar of dried cilantro to finish a salsa? Skip it. With this herb, drying costs you most of what you bought it for. America’s Test Kitchen puts cilantro on its short list of herbs that are much weaker dried,1 and in a 2021 drying study, leaves dried with hot air at higher temperatures landed in a group with descriptors like “dry grass”, “hay-like” and “parsley-like”.2 Dried cilantro can still add a mild green note to a cooked dish, as long as you go in expecting less.

Side by side

Fresh cilantroDried cilantro
PlantCoriandrum sativum, family ApiaceaeSame
Part usedYoung leavesLeaves, dried and crushed; also sold as an ingredient of spice blends
Aroma chemistryVolatile oil about 4 mg per gram of fresh leaf, more than 80% aldehydes (PROSEA)3Drying changes the profile; which compounds survive depends on the method (see below)2
Aroma (description)Citrusy with a biting tang to some people, soapy to othersHay-like, dry grass, parsley-like, sweet or chamomile in hot-air-dried samples2
StrengthThe baselineMuch weaker (ATK)1
FlavorBright, green, lemony, fades fast with heatFaint, grassy, hard to identify as cilantro
Best usesRaw and at the end of cookingCooked dishes and seasoning blends, where fresh isn’t available
KeepsCut leaves about a week in the refrigerator4Penn State: most dried herbs keep well for a year5

What drying does to cilantro

Cilantro’s smell comes from volatile compounds, and drying strips out or reshapes them.

The fresh leaf. PROSEA puts the leaf’s volatile oil at about 4 mg per gram of fresh leaves. More than 80% of it is aldehydes, led by (E)-2-dodecenal, (E)-2-tetradecenal and (E)-2-decenal.3 Those (E)-2-alkenals are the compounds people describe as soapy, fatty, “like cilantro” or pungent.6

What a drying study found. Łyczko and colleagues dried chopped cilantro leaves with hot air (convective drying), vacuum-microwave drying and combinations of the two, then analyzed the aroma by headspace sampling and taste panels.2 A few results stand out:

  • Their fresh-leaf profile doesn’t match PROSEA’s. In their headspace analysis, the biggest single compound in fresh cilantro was (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol acetate, at 34.54% of the total, with decanal at 4.53% and (E)-2-dodecenal at 4.18%.2 Headspace sampling and oil distillation capture different things, so you can’t set these figures against PROSEA’s.
  • Drying shifted the balance. The share of cilantro’s key odor-active compounds rose significantly after drying, with one exception: (Z)-hex-3-en-1-ol fell.2 Those are proportions of what was left, not amounts, so they don’t show that dried cilantro has more of anything.
  • Method mattered. Hot-air drying at 70°C, alone or followed by vacuum-microwave finishing, ranked best for cilantro-like aroma. Vacuum-microwave drying alone scored lowest, and finishing at 50°C made the aroma worse.2
  • The authors’ own bottom line: fresh, unprocessed leaves are the best source of cilantro’s aromatic compounds.2

We found no study that puts a supermarket jar of dried cilantro up against fresh leaves on a taste panel.

Can one stand in for the other?

Dried for fresh, raw (salsa, guacamole, tacos, garnish). No. ATK lists cilantro among the herbs to keep fresh, and warns that dried herbs used as a garnish can add an unpleasant texture and taste dusty.1 A fresh substitute will do far more for a raw dish. See cilantro substitutes, which ranks culantro, flat-leaf parsley, pápalo and others by what cilantro is doing in the dish.

Dried for fresh, cooked. Ratio (Attributed): the general extension rule is 1 tablespoon of finely cut fresh herbs to 1 teaspoon of crumbled dried,7 and ATK’s testing found 1 part dried to 3 parts fresh came closest to equal strength for herbs in general. Expect that ratio to fall short with cilantro. ATK says the delicate herbs are much weaker dried,1 and no source we found measures by how much. Start at 1 teaspoon dried per tablespoon fresh, taste, and add more. ATK found dried herbs do best with more than 20 minutes of cooking and plenty of liquid,8 so dried cilantro belongs in soups, stews, rice and braises.

Fresh for dried. This works. Ratio (Attributed): use about three times the dried amount, chopped, and add it late. LSU AgCenter groups cilantro with the delicate herbs that go in during the last minute or two of cooking, because long heat costs flavor and aroma.7

When to add dried cilantro. ATK says to add dried herbs at the same point you’d add fresh.1

If you dislike cilantro

You’ll sometimes hear that dried cilantro is a good compromise if the fresh herb tastes soapy to you. We found no study that tests that. The 2021 drying study didn’t look at the soapy taste, and it found that drying raised the share of cilantro’s key odor-active compounds overall, with one exception.2 Nothing in it shows that drying removes the aldehydes behind the soapy taste.6 The genetics of the soapy taste are on the cilantro page. If cilantro tastes like soap to you, the safer bet is to leave it out or use a different herb.

What isn’t known

  • How much aroma retail dried cilantro keeps compared with fresh. No study measures a store-bought jar.
  • Whether people who find fresh cilantro soapy also object to dried.

Footnotes

  1. Danielle Lapierre, “When You Should Actually Use Dried Herbs (and Which Ones to Avoid)”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2022. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. Łyczko et al., “Coriandrum sativum L.: Effect of Multiple Drying Techniques on Volatile and Sensory Profile”, Foods, 2021. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

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

  4. Susan Mahr, “Cilantro”, Wisconsin Master Gardener Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2017. mastergardener.extension.wisc.edu · Reference work ↩

  5. Stacy Reed, “Preserving Herbs by Drying”, Penn State Extension, 2024. extension.psu.edu · Reference work ↩

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

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

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

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