Fines Herbes Substitutes: Fill the Gap Herb by Herb

Short one herb for your fines herbes? You don’t need to replace the whole blend, just the gap. This French mix of tender herbs is usually parsley, chives, tarragon and chervil, and it goes on fish, chicken, sauces and omelets. Equal parts parsley and tarragon covers for missing chervil, green onion tops stand in for chives, and Jacques Pépin’s omelet gives you proportions to rebuild the rest. The anise note from tarragon and chervil is the hardest part to replace.

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.

Fines herbes has no fixed proportions, so you can only match a substitute to a recipe, not to a standard.

What each herb brings

Tarragon and chervil share estragole, which gives the blend its soft anise note. That’s the hardest part to replace. Chives and parsley are easier to cover.

If you have some of the herbs fresh

Fines herbes mostly goes in fresh and late. Parsley and chives are delicate herbs, best added in the last minute or two of cooking,⁵ and America’s Test Kitchen groups tarragon with them as herbs whose flavor compounds are more volatile.⁶ Omelets are the main exception: Pépin beats the herbs into the raw eggs.⁷

Start from a known ratio

Formula (Attributed): Jacques Pépin’s fine-herbes omelet uses 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley and 1 tablespoon of a finely chopped mix of chervil, tarragon and chives.⁷ So parsley is half the blend. Use the herbs you have in roughly those shares, and fill a missing herb’s share with the substitutes below.

Missing chervil: parsley with tarragon

Chervil sits between the other two herbs. It’s light and parsley-like with a hint of myrrh, and it carries the same estragole as tarragon. It’s also more delicate than parsley.

Blend (Attributed): Equal parts parsley and tarragon is the usual recommendation to stand in for chervil.⁸

Amount (Method): Start with half the chervil amount of the parsley-tarragon mix, then add more parsley, not more tarragon. Tarragon’s anise note takes over fast, and it’s easier to add than to take back.

Missing tarragon: more chervil, or fennel frond

Ratio (Method): Chervil already carries some of tarragon’s anise note, so use more of it if you have it. Otherwise, fennel has an anise or licorice flavor and goes into fish dishes, soups and stews, so a small pinch of finely chopped frond can bring that note. Fronds are coarser and more vegetal than tarragon, so add a little at a time. When you can buy tarragon, make sure it’s French tarragon: the Russian tarragon sold as seed lacks French tarragon’s smell and flavor.¹

Missing chives: green onion tops

Ratio (Attributed): Use 2 teaspoons of finely chopped green onion tops for 2 teaspoons of chives.⁹ Use the green parts only. Chives have a mild onion flavor.

Missing parsley: more chervil

Ratio (Method): Chervil is parsley-like, so use it 1:1 for the parsley share. If you have no chervil either, use the other herbs and make a smaller batch of blend.

If you only have tarragon

Tarragon on its own keeps the anise character, the most distinctive part of the mix. It’s essential to béarnaise and particularly suits chicken, egg and lobster dishes, which overlap with fines herbes’ uses.

Ratio (Method): In Pépin’s proportions, tarragon is only part of one tablespoon out of two.⁷ Start with about a quarter of the fines herbes amount as chopped tarragon, taste, and add parsley if you have it to make up volume. Too much tarragon tastes sharply of licorice.

If you only have dried herbs

You can buy jars labeled fines herbes, but drying costs these herbs a lot of flavor. Tarragon loses its flavor quickly when the leaves are dried, chives lose a lot in drying, and parsley and chives are both better fresh.

Ratio (Computed): America’s Test Kitchen found that 1 part dried herb to 3 parts fresh came closest to equal flavor, and LSU AgCenter gives the same rule as 1 teaspoon crumbled dried herbs for 1 tablespoon fresh.⁵ In ATK’s test, tasters preferred fresh herbs in all but one application,⁶ so expect a weaker, flatter result.

Dried herbs do better cooked than sprinkled. Stir dried fines herbes into a sauce, braise or egg mixture; don’t use them as a garnish.

If you have a different dried blend: herbes de Provence

Herbes de Provence isn’t a close match. The French Label Rouge specification for herbes de Provence sets fixed shares of thyme, rosemary and savory, with oregano,¹⁰ and none of the four usual fines herbes is among them. These are hardier herbs. America’s Test Kitchen found that dried rosemary and thyme, along with oregano, held up reasonably well in long cooking,⁶ which is the opposite of how fines herbes is used.

Ratio (Method): Use it only in a cooked dish like a stew or braise, add a small pinch early, and taste. It won’t work as a fresh garnish on eggs or fish.

What isn’t known

• Marjoram sometimes gets listed as an optional fines herbe. We found no source for it; Britannica names burnet instead.¹¹
• The 1:3 dried-to-fresh rule is a general one. ATK’s test didn’t include chervil.⁶

Related

• Fines herbes, herbes de Provence and herbes de Provence substitutes
• Tarragon, tarragon substitutes and dried vs. fresh tarragon
• Chervil, chervil substitutes and chervil vs. parsley
• Chives, chives substitutes and chives vs. green onions
• Parsley, parsley substitutes and fresh vs. dried parsley
• Bronze fennel