Chicory root substitutes

The roasted taproot of the dandelion, chicory's nearest relative and the standard caffeine-free coffee alternative in health food shops.

Best for

New Orleans-style coffee blends, caffeine-free coffee, coffee-flavoured baking, iced coffee alternatives

The closest match by a clear margin, since the two plants are in the same family and roast to a similar dark, brewable grind. Dandelion runs a little more sharply bitter and more earthy, with less of chicory's caramel and molasses roundness, so a cafe au lait made with it tastes drier and slightly medicinal at the finish. A pinch of sugar in the pot, or the traditional hot milk, closes that gap almost entirely. Caffeine-free like chicory.

Roasted barley grains, drunk as barley tea in Japan and Korea and as barley coffee in Italy.

Best for

caffeine-free coffee, coffee blends, iced drinks, baking

Pleasant and widely available, and much easier to drink than chicory on its own. It is distinctly toastier, maltier and naturally sweeter, with very little of the bitter grip chicory has, which means a blend made with it tastes rounder and considerably less coffee-like. That gentleness is why you often want a bit more than 1:1. Contains gluten, so it is not an option for coeliacs, unlike chicory itself.

Commercial caffeine-free coffee substitutes made from roasted barley, rye, chicory and sometimes figs or beet.

Best for

caffeine-free coffee, coffee blends, baking, hot drinks

Often the most convenient answer, and worth checking the label because many of these already list chicory as a main ingredient, in which case you have the thing you were looking for. Blends generally taste sweeter and more rounded than straight chicory, with fig or beet contributing a raisin-like sweetness. They dissolve or brew faster than plain roasted chicory, so use a shorter steep than the package suggests if it tastes harsh.

Ordinary decaf ground coffee, standing in for the caffeine-free, bitter, dark portion of a coffee-and-chicory blend.

Best for

New Orleans-style coffee, caffeine-free coffee, cake soaks and tiramisu, coffee cakes

Tastes more like coffee than chicory does, which may be exactly what you want or may miss the point depending on why you were using chicory. What you lose is the specific woody, molasses-sweet note and the thick, almost syrupy body chicory gives a cup, so a cafe au lait comes out thinner and cleaner. You also lose the fibre entirely, so this is no help at all if you were using chicory root as inulin.

Roasted carob pod ground to a powder, sometimes brewed as a caffeine-free hot drink.

Best for

caffeine-free hot drinks, children's coffee-style drinks, baking, chocolate-adjacent desserts

The furthest departure on this list and worth knowing about mainly for children and for the caffeine-averse. Carob is genuinely sweet and cocoa-adjacent with almost no bitterness, so the brew tastes like a thin, slightly fruity hot chocolate rather than like coffee, and the body is noticeably thinner. It also does not settle out cleanly, so sieve it and expect some sediment. Fine in baking where its sweetness is an asset.

Two ingredients splitting inulin's two separate baking jobs, since almost nothing does both at once.

Best for

keto and low-carb baking, sugar-free syrups and fibre bars, low-carb breads, sugar-free ice cream

Be clear about why this takes two ingredients: inulin is mildly sweet and it holds a great deal of water, which is what keeps low-carb bakes from going dry and crumbly. Allulose supplies the sweetness and browning without the fibre, and psyllium husk supplies the water-holding without the sweetness. The result is close but not identical, since inulin also gives a faint caramel note when heated that neither replicates. Add liquid gradually, as psyllium keeps absorbing for several minutes.