Too Much Coriander? How to Fix a Dish That Tastes Dusty, Perfumed or Bitter

Does the dish taste dusty, perfumed or faintly bitter? Ground coriander seed is usually a supporting player: mild, sweet and warm, and milder than cumin,¹ rounding out stronger spices instead of leading. So it takes a lot to overpower a dish. When it does, dilute first, then take the edge off any bitterness with a pinch of sugar or salt, not a squeeze of lemon. If you went overboard with the fresh leaves instead of the seed, head to too much cilantro.

Quick answer

Why coriander can take over

Most of coriander’s smell comes from one compound, linalool. With one compound carrying so much of the aroma, a big dose doesn’t add depth. It just gives you more of the same note, and that comes across as perfumed, not warm. Seed oil yields also vary widely,² so one jar can be a lot stronger than another.

Coriander and cumin often turn up together. If both are in an overpowering dish, it can be hard to tell which one’s to blame. Check too much cumin too.

Too much coriander, overall

Dilute. It’s the only fix that lowers the amount of coriander in each bite. Add more of every other ingredient. If that would make too much food, scoop out half (freeze it to mix later with an unspiced batch) and rebuild the rest. Tasting Table gives the same advice for too much garlic: make a second batch without the problem ingredient and combine the two.³ This works best in soups, stews, curries and braises. It’s harder in a dry rub or a baked dish.

Add mild bulk. Rice, potatoes, chickpeas, lentils or extra vegetables cooked into the dish add volume without competing flavors. That’s still dilution. Nothing’s soaking the coriander up.

Finish with something creamy or fresh. Yogurt, sour cream or coconut milk, or a handful of chopped fresh herbs at the end. Yogurt already belongs in plenty of dishes that use coriander; Saveur notes that it works as a souring agent in curries and shows up in raitas.⁴ These give you something else to taste, so the coriander dominates less. We found no source showing that dairy or coconut milk masks or binds coriander’s aroma compounds, so we won’t claim it does.

Bitter or harsh

Sweetness first. In controlled taste tests, sweet tastes suppressed bitterness, and sugar was the strongest suppressor of other tastes.⁵ That was a lab study with pure taste solutions, not food. Add a pinch of sugar or a little honey and taste. Coriander mostly goes into savory food, so go slowly. You want less bitterness, not a sweet dish.

A little salt. The same study found that sodium salts suppressed bitterness too.⁵ A pinch more salt, or a salty ingredient like soy sauce or miso where it suits the dish, can help when you only overshot a little. If you used far too much coriander, salt won’t cut it on its own. Dilute first.

Acid for brightness, not as a cure. Lemon or lime juice, or tamarind in an Indian dish, adds a sour note that pulls your attention away from the coriander. Saveur calls tamarind “the key souring agent in sambhar.”⁴ Just don’t count on acid to fix bitterness. In the lab study above, citric acid was the least effective suppressor of the tastes tested.⁵ You’ll often read that acid “neutralizes” excess spice. We found no source that backs that up.

Whole seeds, surface coatings and scorching

Strain out whole seeds. Whole coriander seed in a broth, pickling liquid or braise can be strained out or lifted with a slotted spoon. Once they’re out, they stop adding flavor. Taste, then dilute if you need to.

Scrape off a coating. Ground coriander on the surface of meat, fish or roasted vegetables can be scraped or wiped off. Then season again lightly. Don’t rinse raw meat or poultry: the USDA advises against washing it before cooking, because rinsing spreads bacteria around the kitchen.⁶

If it scorched, get the food into a clean pan without scraping the bottom. Scraping only adds burnt flavor.⁷ Ground spices burn fairly quickly in hot fat.⁸

Fixes that don’t hold up

A potato to “soak up” coriander. This one’s borrowed from the oversalted-soup trick, and even there the evidence is thin. A Tasting Table writer who uses it calls the potato “more of an aid than a final answer.”⁹ We found no test of a potato against coriander or any other spice. If potato suits the dish, leave it in and count it as dilution.

Washing coriander off food. Fine for vegetables you’re about to cook again. Not for raw meat or poultry (see above).

Preventing it next time

Know your whole-to-ground conversion. McCormick’s volume conversion puts 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds at 1 1/4 teaspoons ground.¹⁰ That’s volume, not strength. Freshly ground seed from a strong lot can taste stronger than the same spoonful from an old jar.

Bloom it. Cooking ground spices briefly in fat before the rest of the dish goes in brings out their flavor. America’s Test Kitchen says that takes anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes, and warns that ground spices burn fairly quickly.⁸ Taste after blooming before you add more.

Start a little under the recipe. Our rule of thumb when you’re unsure of a jar: add about three quarters of the amount, cook a few minutes, taste, and add the rest only if the dish needs it.

Related

• Coriander vs. cilantro
• Cooking with coriander
• Coriander substitutes
• Coriander vs. cumin
• Too much cumin
• Too much curry powder