Dukkah Substitutes, Ranked by How You’re Using It

Out of dukkah? Make a quick batch. It’s just toasted nuts, sesame, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper, crushed coarse, and all of it is pantry staples. Failing that, the right swap depends on what dukkah is doing in your dish: crunch, toasted sesame, or warm seed spices. No ready-made blend has all three, but za’atar comes closest for dipping bread in olive oil, and chopped toasted nuts with sesame and a little coriander and cumin make a fine crust.

Dukkah (also written duqqa) is a coarse Egyptian mix of crushed seeds and spices, often with nuts. The Oxford Companion to Food lists sesame and coriander seeds, cumin, salt and pepper as typical, maybe with hazelnuts, and says it’s usually eaten with bread dipped in olive oil.¹

Quick answer

How the ratios on this page are labeled

Every ratio carries one of four labels.

• Computed: based on a measurable physical relationship.
• 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.

Dukkah itself has no fixed recipe: Claudia Roden, quoted in the Oxford Companion, explains that its ingredients vary.¹ So every amount below is a starting point, not a measured equivalent.

If dukkah is a dip for bread and olive oil

This is the classic use. Tear off some bread, dip it in olive oil, then into the dukkah. The mix has to cling to oiled bread and give it crunch, so texture matters as much as flavor. Roden is firm that dukkah should be a crushed dry mixture and definitely not a paste.¹

1. Make a quick batch

Dukkah is made from pantry staples, so making your own is the closest substitute there is.

A basic homemade dukkah: 1/2 cup of one kind of nut (hazelnuts, almonds or pistachios), 1/4 cup sesame seeds, 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, 2 teaspoons cumin seeds, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Toast the nuts in a dry skillet until fragrant and lightly browned, then the sesame until golden, then the coriander and cumin for a minute or so. Let everything cool, then crush it with the pepper and salt until coarse. Michele Redmond’s recipe in Food & Nutrition Magazine follows the same pattern with a mix of hazelnuts and almonds, and adds fennel seed.²

The older descriptions treat nuts as optional, so if all you have is sesame, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper, you can still make a version the Oxford Companion would recognize. Crush, don’t grind, and stop while it’s still coarse.

2. Za’atar

Za’atar is the closest ready-made blend for this job, and you eat it the same way. Susan Belsinger, writing in Fine Gardening, suggests brushing flatbread with olive oil and sprinkling it with za’atar, or mixing the two as a dip.³ Sesame is a standard ingredient, and Katzer records sesame in the Jordanian mixture.⁴

The rest of the blend is where it differs. At its most basic, according to UC Cooperative Extension’s Master Food Preservers, za’atar is sumac, thyme, oregano and sesame seeds.⁵ Sumac is tart and sour, with slightly astringent overtones. So za’atar trades dukkah’s warm, toasty seed spices for something herbal and sour, and it has no nuts.

Ratio (Method): For dipping, use it the way you’d use dukkah. Some versions include salt (one recipe Belsinger quotes uses 1 part salt to 4 parts each of herb and sesame),³ so taste before salting the oil or the dish. If you have coriander and cumin seeds, toast and crush a spoonful of each into the za’atar to bring it closer to dukkah.

If dukkah is a crunchy crust or topping

Pressed onto lamb, chicken or fish, or scattered over eggs, yogurt or roasted vegetables, dukkah is mostly a seasoning with texture. Here, crunch and toastiness count for more than an exact spice match.

1. Chopped toasted nuts and seeds

Ratio (Method): Toast whatever nuts you have along with some sesame seeds, chop them coarsely, and season with ground coriander, cumin, salt and pepper. About 1 part sesame to 2 parts nuts by volume, as in the basic batch above, is a reasonable start. Pistachios, walnuts or cashews all work in place of hazelnuts; it’s a matter of taste.

2. Suya spice (yaji), if you like heat

Suya is grilled, skewered beef from West Africa, rubbed with a spice mix called yaji.⁶ Like dukkah, yaji is built on ground nuts, peanuts in this case. America’s Test Kitchen’s version by Kiano Moju uses dry-roasted peanuts, ginger, garlic and onion, with white and cayenne pepper for heat.⁷ Helen Graves’s yaji for Great British Chefs adds paprika, Scotch bonnet powder, cumin seeds, cloves and grains of Selim.⁶

That makes it a good crust, but a hot one. None of the sources above treat dukkah as a chile blend, and yaji usually is.

Ratio (Method): Start with about half the dukkah the recipe calls for, taste for heat, and make up the crunch with chopped nuts or sesame.

3. Gomasio or furikake, for a sesame finish

Gomasio is toasted sesame and salt. Makiko Itoh of JustBento calls it the most basic furikake and says commercial gomashio is usually 8 to 1 sesame to salt by weight.⁸ Furikake, Japanese for “sprinkle,” is a rice seasoning. Namiko Hirasawa Chen of Just One Cookbook describes a common mix of bonito flakes, toasted sesame seeds, nori seaweed, sugar and salt. Some versions add salmon flakes, dried shrimp, shiso, egg, wasabi or vegetables.⁹

Both give you dukkah’s toasted sesame. Neither has its coriander or cumin, and furikake brings a seafood-and-seaweed taste and some sweetness that dukkah doesn’t have.

Ratio (Method): Both lean salty, so start with about half the dukkah amount and add ground coriander and cumin if you have them.

If dukkah is only adding spice flavor

Sometimes dukkah goes into a dressing or a dish where the crunch gets lost anyway. Then you just need the spice flavor, and loose spices do that best.

1. Ground coriander and cumin

Ratio (Method): These are the two spices every source above puts in dukkah. Toast them lightly if they’re whole, then add a pinch of each per serving, with salt and black pepper. You lose the nuts and sesame, which hardly matters in a dressing.

2. Chaat masala, as a small accent

Chaat masala is a finishing blend sprinkled over snacks, fruit and other finished food. It shares cumin with dukkah, but different flavors run the show. Tarla Dalal credits amchur (dried mango powder) with its tang and kala namak (black salt) with its distinctive aroma,¹⁰ and the Gulf News recipe uses a full tablespoon of black salt.¹¹ Neither of the two recipes we compared lists coriander or sesame.

Ratio (Method): Use a small pinch alongside coriander and cumin, not in place of dukkah’s full amount, and hold off on other salt until you’ve tasted.

3. Shichimi togarashi, if you want heat

Shichimi, also sold as Japanese seven-spice or nanami togarashi, is a table condiment for sprinkling over noodles, rice bowls and yakitori.¹² Nippon.com lists chile, sansho and sesame as its standard ingredients, with the rest varying by maker, and mentions sansho’s tongue-numbing heat.¹³ Sesame is the only thing it shares with dukkah.

Ratio (Method): Use it as a light sprinkle for heat and aroma, a pinch at a time. It’s not a measure-for-measure swap.

Allergens

Dukkah and most of its substitutes contain sesame, and many contain tree nuts or peanuts. The FDA lists tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, fish and soybeans among the major food allergens,¹⁴ and that covers furikake made with bonito too.⁹ Check labels before serving any of these to guests.

What isn’t known

• Dukkah itself varies,¹ so a jar you buy may be nuttier, saltier or more heavily spiced than the recipe here.
• Some guides give tsire and chichinga as regional names for West African suya spice. The sources we opened name only yaji, so we stick with that.

Related

• Dukkah and dukkah uses
• Za’atar and za’atar substitutes
• Gomasio, furikake and gomasio vs. furikake
• Shichimi togarashi and chaat masala
• Sesame seeds, coriander and cumin