Sand Ginger (Kencur): What It Is, How It Tastes and How It’s Used

Sand ginger often gets called a galangal, but it isn’t one. It’s Kaempferia galanga, the strongly aromatic, almost medicinal-tasting rhizome of a small, low-growing member of the ginger family, related to galangal but in a different genus. Indonesians call it kencur and often use it in peanut sauce; the English name translates the Chinese sha jiang. Go easy with it, because its camphor-like note takes over fast.

At a glance

What sand ginger is

Kaempferia galanga is a small herb whose leaves, usually two or three, often lie flat against the soil, with white flowers rising from between them. It does best in light shade, in open forest and at forest edges, up to about 1,000 m. The spice is the rhizome.

Sand ginger, galangal and “lesser galangal”

Sand ginger isn’t a kind of galangal. Galangal is Alpinia galanga, sand ginger is in the genus Kaempferia, and both are in the ginger family. The name “lesser galangal” causes most of the mix-ups. Katzer uses it for Kaempferia galanga but notes it’s often applied to Alpinia officinarum,³ a separate plant native to southeastern China and Vietnam that our galangal page covers under that name. Katzer also warns that fingerroot very often gets confused with sand ginger; see fingerroot.

Origin

Sources disagree on where the plant is native:

Kew lists it as introduced in southeastern China, Malaya, Sumatra, the Lesser Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Taiwan, and it’s cultivated all over Southeast Asia, southern China included. All four sources include India. Only Kew stretches the native range east into Myanmar and Indochina.

You’ll often read two claims about sand ginger that we couldn’t trace: that it’s extinct in the wild and survives only in cultivation, and that Indian traders carried it to Malaysia and Indonesia. Neither shows up in the sources above, and PROSEA’s description of the plant as widespread in India doesn’t fit the first.²

Flavor and the compounds behind it

The smell is strongly aromatic, spice-like and almost medicinal, and Katzer finds it less pleasant than greater galangal at first sniff or in large amounts. China’s pharmacopoeia, as quoted in a 2021 review, calls it pungent and warm in nature.⁴ Expect a camphor-like, piney sharpness with less of ginger’s sweet heat.

The rhizome holds about 2.5–4% essential oil.³ Two compounds dominate it, ethyl p-methoxycinnamate and ethyl cinnamate:

The review’s figures come from different studies and are listed by sample, so don’t average them. Eucalyptol and borneol are in there too, but only as minor components.

How sand ginger is used

• Indonesia. It’s essential to Javanese cooking and often flavors peanut sauce (sambal kacang). It’s also a common ingredient of jamu, and beras kencur is a well-known Indonesian herbal drink made from kencur.
• Malaysia. People eat the leaves and rhizomes fresh as a vegetable.
• China. Sand ginger is especially common in Sichuan cooking, and Chinese cooking always uses it dried.
• India. It doesn’t matter in Indian cooking today.
• Perfumery. The rhizomes go into perfumery too.

Fresh rhizome is usually grated or crushed. Dried slices can be cooked with vegetable or meat dishes. You’ll read that sand ginger goes into Thai curries and Malaysian nasi kerabu, but none of the sources we opened confirms either.

In the kitchen

Go easy. Its camphor-like note takes over fast. Fresh kencur works well pounded into spice pastes with shallots, garlic and chiles. Dried slices or powder go into Chinese-style braises and spice rubs. It pairs with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, turmeric and galangal.

Buying and storage

Fresh kencur is hard to find outside Southeast Asia. In Europe it’s sold mainly in the Netherlands, home to a large Indonesian community. Dried slices and powder are easier to track down, often labeled kencur or “aromatic ginger” in Indonesian and Chinese groceries. No source gives a shelf life. Keep dried forms sealed and out of the light, and judge freshness by smell. For fresh rhizomes, the advice on how to store galangal and can you freeze galangal is a reasonable place to start.

Health claims and safety

PROSEA records a long list of traditional medicinal uses: in Malaysia for high blood pressure, swellings, ulcers and asthma; in Indonesia for swellings, rheumatism and wounds; in the Philippines for colds, headache and indigestion.² That’s tradition, not proven effect.

The research is mostly lab and animal work. A 2021 review of the plant’s pharmacology says there’s little scientific evidence for its use against cancer, reports anti-inflammatory activity for a leaf extract, and describes no human clinical trials in the text we could read. On safety, the same review says systematic toxicity and safety evaluations are “still unclear.” The animal studies it cites include an acute test in rats at doses up to 5,000 mg/kg with no deaths.⁴ We found no source showing that sand ginger treats cancer, infections, inflammation or ulcers in people, or that it beats aspirin, so we don’t claim any of that.

Substitutes and comparisons

Nothing matches its flavor closely. Galangal is the usual stand-in for its sharpness, with a little fresh ginger. See sand ginger substitutes, galangal substitutes, galangal vs. ginger and ginger.