Loomi Substitutes, Ranked by What the Dried Lime Is Doing

Out of loomi? For a whole lime simmering in a stew, make your own dried limes or use fresh lime zest and a little juice. For ground loomi in rice, reach for sumac, which Gernot Katzer says cooks in Iran already use the same way. Loomi brings three things: sourness, lime aroma, and a dark, musky depth; Saveur calls the flavor “at once sour and musky.”¹ Nothing else has all three, so pick by the job loomi is doing in your recipe.

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.

Dried limes aren’t uniform either. Saveur notes they run from parchment brown to charcoal, with paler limes going into lighter dishes and black ones into darker stews.¹ So a recipe’s “one dried lime” is already a rough amount.

If loomi is simmering whole in a stew

Whole dried limes get crushed or pierced with a skewer and added to slow-simmering food. Gernot Katzer says they give legumes and meat dishes “a distinct citrus odour and a sour tang,”² and Saveur says a few pricks with a knife let the cooking liquid get inside.¹ Taste as the dish cooks, and fish the lime out before serving.

1. Make your own dried limes

This is the only swap that gets you the real thing. Saveur says you can blanch fresh limes in salted water, then dry them on a rack in the sun or in an airy pantry for at least a week.¹ That follows the commercial method, where ripe limes are boiled in salt water and sun-dried until their insides darken.²

Give it more than a week if you can. A 2021 drying study notes that traditional open-air sun drying of whole limes in Oman takes 25 to 35 days.³ We didn’t find a tested time or temperature for drying limes in a home oven or a food dehydrator.

Make a batch while you’re at it. Saveur says whole dried limes can last two years, while grinding releases their volatile oils and shortens their shelf life.¹

Ratio (Method): One homemade lime for each dried lime in the recipe. Taste before serving.

2. Fresh lime zest, plus a little lime juice

Katzer’s account of the lime explains why this pair works. The peel holds the lime’s aromatic oil, and the juice is used for its sour, refreshing fragrance.² Zest covers the aroma; juice covers the sourness.

Where it falls short: neither has loomi’s musky, fermented depth,¹⁴ and the juice adds liquid. Stick with limes over lemons if you can. Katzer writes that lime juice is much more aromatic than lemon juice, and that swapping lemon juice for lime always disappoints.²

Ratio (Method): Add the zest of about half a fresh lime per dried lime with the liquid, then add lime juice a little at a time near the end and taste.

3. Tamarind

A 2016 study describes ripe tamarind’s appeal as its “acidic sweetness.”⁵ Katzer calls tamarind one of the two important sour ingredients in Indian cooking.⁶

Where it falls short: tamarind brings sourness and a fruity sweetness but no citrus aroma, and it’s dark brown, so save it for darker stews. Its strength varies too. The same 2016 study found pulp pH differed between tamarind genotypes, with the lowest pH in sour varieties.⁵

Ratio (Method): Start with about 1/2 teaspoon of tamarind paste per dried lime, stir it in during the last stage of cooking, taste, and add more.

If ground loomi is going into rice, a rub or a sprinkle

1. Sumac

Katzer writes that in Iran and northern India, powdered loomi flavors rice “as an alternative to sumac.”² The two do the same job in that dish, which makes sumac the most natural stand-in for the powder.

Sumac is a dried fruit ground to a dark red powder. Katzer describes the taste as tart and sour with slightly astringent overtones, and notes that ground sumac is often mixed with salt.⁷ A 2021 review notes it’s served with minced meat for a lemony taste.⁸

Where it falls short: sumac is lemony, not musky, and it turns food red. Check the label for salt before you salt the dish.

Ratio (Method): Start with about half as much sumac as ground loomi, taste, and add more. It’s best stirred in at the end or sprinkled over the finished dish.

2. Amchur (mango powder)

Amchur is ground dried unripe mango. Katzer credits its sourness to citric acid and related compounds and describes the taste as subtle and resin-like.⁶ Lime juice also contains citric acid, so amchur adds a related sourness without adding liquid or dark color.

Where it falls short: no lime aroma, and none of loomi’s dark depth.

Ratio (Method): Start with about half as much amchur as ground loomi and add to taste.

What isn’t known

• Cooks and editors describe loomi’s musky, fermented note,¹⁴ but we found no measurement of it, so we can’t say which substitute shares it.
• We didn’t find a tested home oven or dehydrator method for drying limes.
• You’ll often read that loomi offsets gamey or fishy flavors. No source we read backs that up.

Related

• Loomi
• Sumac, sumac substitutes and cooking with sumac
• Mango powder and mango powder substitutes
• Anardana, kaffir lime leaves and lemon pepper
• Too much tamarind? How to fix a too-sour dish