Lavender as a Culinary Herb: Which Lavender to Cook With, Flavor and Safety

Lavender is best known as a perfume plant, but its dried flowers are a culinary herb too, mostly in sweets, drinks and dairy, and now and then with roast meats. Which lavender you buy matters. English or true lavender, Lavandula angustifolia, is the one to cook with, while most lavandins are high in cineole and camphor and taste bitter. And for all the talk of lavender in herbes de Provence, the French Label Rouge specification for the blend doesn’t mention it.¹ Below, we also keep the kitchen herb and the aromatherapy product apart, because they’re different things with different evidence behind them.

At a glance

Which lavender is which

Lavandula is a genus of about 30 species, native to the lands around the Mediterranean. Several are grown, and they don’t taste the same.

The names are a muddle. The FDA’s lists still use the older name Lavandula officinalis Chaix, which Kew treats as a synonym of L. angustifolia subsp. angustifolia.⁷³ Common names vary between references too. Britannica calls L. stoechas French lavender, while the Herb Society calls it Spanish lavender.⁶⁵ Go by the botanical name on the package.

Flavor and aroma

Culinary lavender tastes floral, sweet and a little resinous, and it turns bitter and soapy when you use too much. The Herb Society’s advice is to use less than you think and add it gradually, since it’s easier to add more than to rescue an over-flavored dish.⁵

The compounds

The Herb Society credits true lavender’s nicer kitchen flavor to higher levels of linalyl acetate and linalool, and blames the harshness of lavandin and L. stoechas on high cineole and camphor.⁵ A 2021 study of 13 new L. angustifolia cultivars bred in Ukraine found linalool and linalyl acetate were the main constituents of every sample, but across wide ranges:

The same paper notes that L. angustifolia oil is prized for its low camphor content.² The oil’s fragrant constituents include linalyl acetate, linalool, pinene, limonene, geraniol and cineole.

Origin and history

L. angustifolia is native from northeastern Spain to Italy, with France, Italy and Spain as native countries. It’s been introduced across much of Europe and as far as New York, Vermont, Venezuela and the western Himalaya.⁸

• Name. The English word comes, via Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin lavendula, perhaps from Latin lividus, “bluish”. It was probably linked with Italian lavanda, “a washing”, because the plant was used to scent washed fabric and baths.⁹ You’ll often see it traced straight to Latin lavare, “to wash”, but the dictionary doesn’t give that derivation. It treats the washing link as a later association.
• Rome. The ancient Romans used lavender in their baths.
• Linen. Dried flowers have long gone into sachets to scent chests and closets.

Lots of other stories get attached to lavender, including its discovery in Tutankhamun’s tomb, a link to biblical spikenard, and a royal fondness for lavender preserves. We couldn’t trace any of them to a source we could open, so they’re left out.

How lavender is used in cooking

Lavender is sometimes used to flavor drinks and sweets. The Herb Society’s ideas run from cookies, cakes, puddings, custards, ice cream, meringue, peach pie and cherry jam to lemonade, iced tea, coffee and cocktails, often by way of a lavender syrup or honey. On the savory side, it suggests lavender in cream infusions and chili spice blends, and lower-camphor lavandins with rosemary, sage and thyme under the skin of a roast chicken or with beef.⁵

People often say lavender belongs in herbes de Provence. The French Label Rouge specification for the blend lists thyme, rosemary, savory, oregano and basil, and doesn’t mention lavender.¹ Blends sold under the name vary. See herbes de Provence.

Amounts and technique

The Herb Society says dried buds are three times more concentrated than fresh blooms.⁵ That’s their figure, and we couldn’t check how they got it. A common way to get the aroma without the texture is to steep the buds in cream, milk, sugar or syrup and strain them out. More: cooking with lavender.

Buying and quality

Buy lavender sold for cooking, and check the botanical name. The Herb Society singles out L. angustifolia cultivars like ‘Royal Velvet’, ‘Buena Vista’ and ‘Sharon Roberts’ for floral flavor, pink cultivars like ‘Melissa’ and ‘Miss Katherine’ for spicier notes, and ‘Folgate’ for a minty one.⁵ Lavender grown for crafts or landscaping may not be labeled by species and may have been sprayed with garden chemicals, so leave it out of the kitchen. To dry your own, see how to dry lavender.

Storage

We couldn’t find a published shelf-life figure for dried culinary lavender. Your nose is the practical test. See how to store lavender.

Culinary use vs. aromatherapy

Lavender oil and lavender flowers are different products, and nearly all the health evidence is about the oil.

• As food. NCCIH says lavender is likely safe in the amounts usually used in food.¹⁰ The FDA lists lavender among GRAS spices and lavender oil among GRAS essential oils.³⁴ The food industry uses lavender oil to flavor drinks, ice cream, candy, chewing gum and baked goods.²
• Anxiety. Studies suggest that a lavender oil product taken by mouth might help with anxiety.¹⁰ That’s a specific concentrated product, not lavender tea or lavender cookies.
• Sleep and pain. NCCIH says the benefits of lavender aromatherapy for sleep quality, insomnia and some kinds of pain are unclear, and more high-quality research is needed.¹⁰
• Skin and hormones. Topical lavender products may cause allergic skin reactions in some people, and a few cases of breast tissue swelling have been reported in children who used them. The cause is unclear.¹⁰
• Short-term oral products might be safe, according to NCCIH.¹⁰

We don’t claim lavender treats or prevents anything. You’ll see it said that lavender supplies meaningful vitamin A, calcium or iron, or that it treats insomnia, digestive complaints or arthritis. We couldn’t find a source for any of that.

Substitutes and comparisons

Nothing tastes quite like lavender. Rosemary or thyme can stand in for it in savory dishes, and a little lemon zest or a floral honey can cover some of its job in sweets. See lavender substitutes, rosemary vs. lavender, sage vs. lavender and hyssop vs. lavender.