Moroccan Spices: Cumin, Ginger, Saffron, Cinnamon, Turmeric and the Ras el Hanout Cupboard

Moroccan cooking reaches into a big spice cupboard but uses a light hand. Food writer Paula Wolfert describes Moroccan cooks using spices to stretch the taste of food without overwhelming its own flavor.¹ Cumin, ginger, saffron, cinnamon, turmeric and paprika handle most of the everyday cooking. Ground cumin often sits on the table next to the salt, Morocco grows its own saffron, and the house blend ras el hanout, roughly “top of the shop,” pulls in many more spices. Here’s each one, with links to our full profiles.

At a glance

Cumin

Wolfert singles out “the rich, earthy cumin seed” among the spices in Moroccan stalls, and two of her examples of the cuisine are cumin-scented: mechoui, spit-roasted lamb, and carrots with cumin and hot paprika.¹ In Morocco, ground cumin often sits on the table in a small dish next to the salt.⁶ The main compound in cumin oil is cuminaldehyde, which PROSEA puts at 20 to 72% of the oil.²

You’ll sometimes read that Morocco uses less cumin than its neighbors. We found no source for that, and the examples above point the other way. See cumin, cumin uses and too much cumin.

Ginger

Wolfert names “the pungent powdered ginger” in the same breath as cumin and saffron,¹ and ginger is one of the six standard ras el hanout ingredients listed by The Oxford Companion to Food.⁷ Its heat comes from gingerols, non-volatile phenolic compounds.³ Fresh ginger has its place too, but these sources describe the dried, ground form. See ginger, cooking with ginger and is ginger spicy?.

Saffron

Saffron is among the first spices Wolfert names in Moroccan markets. Morocco grows it, too. AHPA’s history of saffron names Iran as the main producer, with 430 tons reported in 2019, and lists Morocco at 2.6 tons, behind Afghanistan at 6 and just ahead of Spain at 2.3. The article gives a year only for the Iran figure.⁸ You may hear that saffron is cheaper in Morocco than in the West, but we found no price comparison to back that up.

See saffron, cooking with saffron, saffron uses, why is saffron so expensive? and too much saffron.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is in Wolfert’s list of market spices and in World Spice Merchants’ 24-spice ras el hanout, which uses both Indonesian and true cinnamon.⁹ In true cinnamon the main aroma compound is cinnamaldehyde, about 49.9 to 62.8% of the bark oil in a systematic review.⁴ Wolfert writes that the Moroccan pairing of sweet with spicy, and of meat with fruit, recalls Persia and Catalonia.¹ Cinnamon with lamb and in couscous fits right into that pattern.

See cinnamon, Ceylon cinnamon, cassia, Ceylon vs. cassia and too much cinnamon.

Turmeric

Turmeric is one of the standard ras el hanout spices. Its yellow color comes from curcumin. It tastes earthy and slightly bitter, something like a muted ginger. See turmeric, cooking with turmeric and too much turmeric.

Coriander seed

Coriander seed is another standard ras el hanout ingredient. Its oil is 60 to 80% terpene alcohols, mostly linalool, according to a 2023 review in Molecules.⁵ See coriander, cooking with coriander and too much coriander.

Cardamom, nutmeg and mace

All three show up in ras el hanout. Cardamom and nutmeg are on the Oxford Companion’s standard list, and World Spice Merchants’ blend includes nutmeg and mace. Mace is the dried aril, the lacy covering around the nutmeg seed.

• Cardamom. PROSEA gives its oil as mainly 1,8-cineole (20 to 60%) and α-terpinyl acetate (20 to 53%).¹⁰ See cardamom and cooking with cardamom.
• Nutmeg. Aromatic ethers, including myristicin, make up 2 to 18% of nutmeg oil, per PROSEA.¹¹ Large amounts of nutmeg are a safety issue; see too much nutmeg. For keeping it, see how to store nutmeg and nutmeg uses.
• Mace. See mace and cooking with mace.

We found no source on how often mace shows up on its own in Moroccan dishes, or for the claim that its price keeps it mostly for “fancy” dishes.

Ras el hanout

Ras el hanout is the blend that ties the cupboard together. The Oxford Companion says the name means something like “top of the shop,” that it turns up in varying forms in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and that its standard ingredients are cumin, coriander seed, turmeric, ginger, cardamom and nutmeg.⁷ Saveur’s headnote says it goes into virtually every dish from the region.¹² Longer versions add rarer spices. Grains of paradise may appear in Moroccan spice mixtures, and a 2022 review of cubeb pepper says cubeb is popular in Moroccan savory dishes and pastries such as markouts.¹³

See ras el hanout, ras el hanout substitutes and ras el hanout vs. garam masala, plus grains of paradise and cubeb pepper.

Spice names

Moroccan spice names get repeated in all sorts of transliterated spellings, but we didn’t find a reference source that sets them out, so we’ve left them off.

History

You’ll often read that Morocco was a stop on an ancient spice road between Asia and Europe, with Andalusian and Berber influences on its spice use. None of the sources in this review documents the spice-route claim. Wolfert’s comparison of Moroccan sweet-and-spicy cooking with Persian and Catalan cooking is one documented observation of outside influence.¹

Related pages

• Moroccan mint and spearmint
• Harissa powder, dukkah and za’atar
• Egyptian spices and Ethiopian spices
• Paprika and anise seed
• The master list of herbs and spices