What Is Cilantro and How Can I Use It?

Cilantro rewards a little know-how: how to choose it, cook it, store it, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 1,920 recipes to cook with it.

What is cilantro?

The leaves are variously referred to as coriander leaves , Chinese parsley , cilantro (in America, from the Spanish for the plant).

The leaves have a different taste from the seeds, with citrus overtones. Some perceive an unpleasant "soapy" taste or a rank smell and avoid the leaves. The flavours have also been compared to those of the stink bug, and similar chemical groups are involved (aldehydes).

The fresh leaves are an ingredient in many South Asian foods (particularly chutneys), in Chinese dishes and in Mexican dishes, particularly in salsa and guacamole and as a garnish.

Chopped coriander leaves are a garnish on cooked dishes such as dal and curries. As heat diminishes their flavor quickly, coriander leaves are often used raw or added to the dish immediately before serving.

Fruit

The seeds have a lemony citrus flavour when crushed, due to terpenes linalool and pinene. It is described as warm, nutty, spicy, and orange-flavored. It is commonly found both as whole dried seeds and in ground form. Seeds can be roasted or heated on a dry pan briefly before grinding to enhance and alter the aroma. Ground coriander seed loses flavor quickly in storage and is best ground fresh.

Roots

Coriander roots have a deeper, more intense flavor than the leaves. They are used in a variety of Asian cuisines. They are commonly used in Thai dishes, including soups and curry pastes.

Types of cilantro

Specific kinds of cilantro and the recipes that use them.

Coriander

Coriander is the fresh, bright green leaf of the Coriandrum sativum plant, the soft herb that finishes curries and noodle soups and salsa.

In the United States and Canada the leaf is called cilantro, while most of the rest of the world calls the whole plant coriander. Same plant, two names.

This page is about the leaf. The dried tan seed from the same plant is a warm, citrusy spice with a different flavor and use, and it lives on its own page under coriander seeds.

So if a recipe lists ground coriander or coriander seed, it means the spice, not these leaves.

Fresh coriander tastes citrusy and green with a little pepper. For a slice of people it reads as soapy, a real genetic quirk tied to how they smell certain aldehydes, so it is worth keeping separate on the plate when you cook for a crowd.

Coriander seeds

Coriander seeds are the dried, round fruit of the cilantro plant, the same herb whose fresh leaves divide dinner tables.

The seeds taste nothing like the leaves. Where cilantro is bright and grassy, the seed is warm and nutty with a citrus edge, a mild sweetness, and none of the soapy note some people pick up in the leaf.

They are sold whole, looking like tiny ridged beige globes, or pre-ground. In the spice world the whole-seed version here is interchangeable with what some recipes simply call coriander. Same seed, same plant.