Long Pepper Substitutes: What Works When You Can’t Find Pippali

Out of long pepper? Your best bet is white pepper with a little mace, or Javanese long pepper if you can find it. Plain black pepper works in a pinch, but it isn’t the best match. Writers describe long pepper as like black pepper, only sweeter and more complex. Sources don’t even agree on whether it’s hotter or milder than black pepper, so start low with any swap.

Quick answer

How the ratios on this page are labeled

• 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.

The merchants we checked say you can use long pepper wherever you’d use black pepper, but none of them gives a quantity.¹²

Hotter or milder than black pepper? Sources disagree

How much substitute you need depends on how hot long pepper is, and the sources don’t agree:

We found figures for piperine, the compound that makes both peppers hot, but they come from different sources and samples. They’re in the same ballpark, but they can’t tell you which is hotter.⁵⁶ So the starting amounts below lean low.

If long pepper is giving pepper heat with a sweet, warm edge

That’s most uses: rubs, braises, dressings, poached fruit and finishing. The Spice House picks up nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger notes beyond the heat,¹ and Atlas Obscura calls the flavor sweeter than black pepper, with a citrusy bite.⁴

1. Javanese long pepper, if you find it

Two species get sold under the same name, and Piper retrofractum is the other one. Katzer says the spice trade often doesn’t clearly tell the two apart, and that the Indonesian species has slightly smaller spikes.³

Ratio (Method): Use it one for one and taste.

2. White pepper plus a little mace

This one’s Katzer’s idea. He says ordinary black pepper can’t replace long pepper because long pepper’s aroma lacks black pepper’s terpene components, and suggests white pepper plus a little mace instead.³ That fits what we know about white pepper. It’s the same species as black pepper with the outer layer (pericarp) removed, and Katzer notes that this outer layer holds part of the aroma, so white pepper is less aromatic than black.⁷ Mace brings the warm, sweet spice note. See mace.

Sources disagree about white pepper’s heat, too. Britannica calls it less pungent than black pepper; Katzer says it keeps the full pungency.⁸⁷

Ratio (Method): Start with 3/4 teaspoon ground white pepper and a pinch (about 1/8 teaspoon) of ground mace per teaspoon of long pepper, then taste and adjust.

3. Black pepper, preferably a good grade

If black pepper is all you’ve got, you’ll get the heat. Both get their bite from piperine.⁵⁶ What you lose, by Katzer’s account, is long pepper’s particular smell.³ Zingerman’s, a merchant that sells long pepper, says to use long pepper any way you’d use black pepper,² which backs up the swap in the other direction for everyday cooking.

A good grade helps. Tellicherry is an origin-and-size grade of black pepper from India’s Malabar Coast, not a separate plant. The McCormick Science Institute says it’s widely considered the highest quality and most flavorful black pepper,⁹ and one seller describes a citrus-forward brightness.¹⁰ That brightness overlaps with the citrusy note Atlas Obscura finds in long pepper. We didn’t find anyone who’s measured either claim. See Tellicherry pepper vs. black pepper.

Ratio (Method): Start with about 3/4 as much freshly ground black pepper as the long pepper called for, taste, and add more. In sweeter dishes, a pinch of mace or nutmeg covers some of the missing warmth.

If whole long pepper is steeping in a pickle, stew or braise

Katzer says long pepper’s main use in India is in spicy vegetable pickles, and that it usually shows up in traditional Ethiopian meat stews.³ The Spice House says you can drop it in whole in a stew or slow-roasted lamb.¹

Ratio (Method): A long pepper spike is roughly 2 cm long.⁵ Start with three or four whole white or black peppercorns per spike, and fish them out before serving if you want it milder.

If you want a different kind of heat

1. Grains of paradise

Grains of paradise, also sold as Guinea grains, melegueta pepper or alligator pepper, get their heat from a different group of pungent compounds, not piperine. Katzer describes it as less strong than pepper and more subtle, with a flavor that’s spicy, hot, warm and a little bitter.¹¹

Ratio (Method): Start one for one, freshly ground, and taste.

2. Cubeb pepper

Cubeb is another pepper species, but Katzer says the compounds that make black and long pepper hot play no significant role in it. He describes it as pungent and bitter.¹²

Ratio (Method): Start with half as much cubeb as long pepper and taste. The bitterness is easy to overdo. See cubeb pepper substitutes.

3. Cayenne, for heat alone

Chile heat comes from capsaicin, and in a lab study on the human heat receptor TRPV1, capsaicin was a much more potent activator than piperine.¹³ That’s a cell study, not a taste test, but it’s a good reason to go easy. Cayenne gives you heat and none of long pepper’s aroma.

Ratio (Method): Start with a small pinch, well under a quarter of the long pepper amount, and taste.

What isn’t known

• Sources disagree on whether long pepper is hotter or milder than black pepper, and no study has measured both side by side.

Related

• Long pepper and long pepper vs. black pepper
• Black pepper, white peppercorns, white pepper vs. black pepper, Tellicherry pepper
• Grains of paradise, grains of paradise substitutes, cubeb pepper, cayenne pepper
• Black pepper substitutes, white pepper substitutes, too much pepper