Hyssop Substitutes for Savory Dishes, Desserts and Za’atar Recipes

Before you swap out hyssop, check which hyssop your recipe means. In a Middle Eastern recipe, “hyssop” may be the plant called za’atar in Arabic, and then oregano or a za’atar blend is your answer. For garden hyssop, the woody mint-family herb, rosemary is your closest stand-in in savory cooking, with sage and oregano behind it. For sweets, reach for culinary lavender or mint. No single herb copies hyssop, because it’s strongly aromatic and a bit bitter at the same time.

First, which hyssop does your recipe mean?

Old Dominion University’s Plants of the Bible site notes that Origanum syriacum, called Syrian hyssop in English, is known in Arabic as za’atar.¹ So a Middle Eastern recipe that calls for hyssop may mean that plant. It’s a different species from garden hyssop, in the same genus as oregano. If that’s what your recipe means, especially in a spice blend, oregano or a za’atar blend is the closer swap, not the herbs below. See za’atar substitutes and oregano.

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.

What hyssop tastes like, and what’s in it

Hyssop smells somewhere between mint, sage and rosemary, with a floral note and a bitter finish.

None of the usual substitutes matches its oil. Rosemary comes closest, through the piny compounds called pinenes that both herbs carry.²

If hyssop is a savory seasoning

1. Rosemary

Rosemary is a mint-family plant too, with a warm, piny scent. That pine note is the piece of hyssop’s smell rosemary can cover. It doesn’t have hyssop’s floral side.

Ratio (Method): Start with about half as much rosemary as hyssop, chopped fine, and taste. Rosemary is strong and its needles are tough, so it suits long-cooked dishes better than salads.

2. Sage

Sage is also in the mint family, with a strong, distinctive smell of its own. It matches hyssop’s bitter, resinous strength more than its particular smell.

Ratio (Method): Start with about half as much sage as hyssop and taste. Sage is best in cooked dishes with fatty meats or beans, and less good in salads or sweets.

3. Oregano

Oregano is another mint-family herb. It can stand in for hyssop’s pungency in savory cooking, but not its smell.

Ratio (Method): Start with about half as much and taste.

If hyssop is flavoring something sweet

Sweets are among hyssop’s traditional uses, including puddings and candies.

1. Culinary lavender

Lavender is another mint-family genus. How it tastes depends on the species. The Herb Society of America calls true lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) the most delightful species to cook with, and warns that lavandin and Spanish lavender are high in cineole and camphor.³ Lavender gives you hyssop’s floral side, but none of its pine or bitterness, and it’s sometimes used to flavor drinks and sweets.

Ratio (Method): Start with about half as much lavender as hyssop and add more as you go, which is the Herb Society’s advice for lavender in general.³ Buy L. angustifolia sold for cooking.

2. Mint

Mint is the easiest one to find. You get a cool, fresh note but none of hyssop’s bitterness or pine.

Ratio (Method): Mint is milder than hyssop, so start with an equal amount and add more to taste.

Dried hyssop for fresh

Got dried hyssop and a recipe that wants fresh? The general fresh-to-dried herb conversion works.

Ratio (Computed): NDSU Extension equates 1 tablespoon of finely cut fresh herbs with 1 teaspoon of dried.⁴ In America’s Test Kitchen’s tests, 1 part dried herb to 3 parts fresh came closest to equal flavor strength. The same tests found the hardy dried herbs (thyme, rosemary and sage) held up reasonably well in dishes cooked fairly long, more than 20 minutes, with a good amount of liquid.⁵ Neither source tested hyssop itself.

A note on hyssop oil

Hyssop oil is no substitute for the herb. The Wolters Kluwer monograph reports that the oil has caused convulsions in rats, links its neurotoxicity to pinocamphone and isopinocamphone, and notes case reports of seizures in adults and children.² Those findings are about the concentrated oil, not leaves used as a seasoning.

What isn’t known

• You’ll sometimes read that hyssop smells like lemon and lavender combined. We found no source for that.

Related

• Hyssop, cooking with hyssop and hyssop vs. lavender
• Rosemary, sage, sage substitutes and rosemary vs. sage
• Lavender, lavender substitutes and sage vs. lavender
• Mint, mint substitutes and oregano vs. mint
• Za’atar and za’atar substitutes