Kencur substitute

Best substitute

Kencur Powder

Use ½ tsp powder for every 1 tsp freshly grated kencur

Best for pecel peanut sauce

Different texture

Nothing matches kencur closely, so the practical answer is galangal at about three quarters the amount, which gives you a piney rhizome note in the same family without the camphor. Adding a pinch of ground cardamom, roughly 1/8 teaspoon per teaspoon of grated rhizome, pushes it noticeably closer. Packaged kencur powder from an Indonesian grocer is the best real option at about 1/2 teaspoon powder per teaspoon of fresh grated, and Indonesian home cooks use it too.

Other kencur substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Galangal (Fresh or Frozen)
Different taste
About ¾ the amount by weight
The most available rhizome in the same botanical neighbourhood, and the standard fallback.
What changes
Best for
curry pastes, sambal, pecel sauce, soups, marinades
Be clear about the difference: galangal is piney, sharp and citrusy, while kencur is camphorous, earthy and slightly bitter. A pecel peanut sauce made with galangal tastes brighter, cleaner and more assertive, and it loses the faint medicinal roundness that makes the sauce taste Javanese. It is a good dish, just a different one. Use a little less than the recipe's kencur, because galangal is more aggressive.
3Galangal + a Pinch of Ground Cardamom
Close match
Use ¾ the amount of galangal + ⅛ tsp ground cardamom for every 1 tsp kencur
The closest thing you can build from ingredients a well-stocked kitchen already has.
What changes
Best for
spice pastes, pecel, urap, grilled fish marinades, beras kencur drinks
Cardamom carries a genuine camphor and eucalyptus note, which is exactly the character galangal lacks, so this blend lands much nearer the target than galangal alone. The trade-off is a sweet, perfumed edge that kencur does not have, so keep the cardamom to a pinch. Overdo it and the dish tastes like a dessert spice, which is worse than plain galangal.
4Fingerroot (Krachai)
Different taste
Use the same amount
Another Southeast Asian rhizome, easy to find frozen or brined in Thai groceries.
What changes
Best for
spice pastes, fish dishes, soups, sambal
Fingerroot is earthy and slightly medicinal in a direction related to kencur, which makes it a better flavour match than ginger, though it is more peppery and has a distinctive sinus-clearing note of its own. Frozen or brined fingerroot is common and cheap. Rinse the brined kind before using, or the dish picks up a sour, pickled edge that does not belong.
5Fresh Ginger
Different taste
Use the same amount with a scrape of nutmeg or a squeeze of lime
The swap almost everyone reaches for, worth listing honestly rather than pretending it works.
What changes
Best for
emergencies, cooked spice pastes, when nothing else is available
Ginger is hot, sweet and pungent with no camphor and no bitterness at all, so the dish will taste of ginger and will be perfectly pleasant while being clearly not what the recipe intended. A tiny scrape of nutmeg adds back a hint of the warm-medicinal note, and a squeeze of lime keeps the sweetness in check. Use this in a cooked paste with many other aromatics, not in something like beras kencur where the rhizome is the whole flavour.
6Leave It Out
Different taste
Omit, and add nothing
Reasonable in a busy spice paste, and not reasonable in the dishes named after it.
What changes
Best for
complex curry pastes, sambal with many aromatics
If kencur is one of eight things going into a pounded bumbu alongside garlic, shallot, chilli, galangal and lemongrass, omitting it costs a background note that most people would not identify. If the dish is beras kencur, pecel or urap, kencur is the defining flavour and leaving it out gives you a peanut sauce or a coconut salad with no signature, which is a good argument for buying a sachet of the powder next time you pass an Indonesian grocer.

What is Kencur?

Kencur is Kencur is the small, pale rhizome of Kaempferia galanga, known as cekur in Malaysia and labelled aromatic ginger or sand ginger in English, with a camphor-like, faintly bitter, pine-and-earth flavour quite unlike ginger or galangal.

Cooking tips

Use much less than you think. Kencur is powerful and turns soapy and bitter when overdone, and a piece the size of a thumbnail is enough to flavour a whole batch of pecel sauce. If a Western recipe tells you to use it by the tablespoon, be suspicious and start small.
Peel it, then grate it on a microplane or pound it in a mortar rather than chopping it. The rhizome is fibrous and coarse pieces leave stringy threads in a peanut sauce, whereas grating and pounding release the aromatic oils that are the whole reason it is in the dish.
Buy several and freeze them whole in a bag. Fresh kencur is only intermittently available even in Asian markets, it dries out and goes woody within a couple of weeks in the fridge, and it grates cleanly straight from frozen with no loss of aroma.
Do not confuse it with the other rhizomes sitting near it. Greater galangal, called lengkuas, is much bigger, harder and paler with distinct rings; turmeric is bright orange inside; ginger is smoother and larger. Kencur is small, knobbly, thin-skinned and pale yellow-brown, and it smells sharply medicinal when you scratch the skin.
The English name on the label is unreliable. The same rhizome is sold as aromatic ginger, sand ginger, resurrection lily and sometimes lesser galangal, while lesser galangal is also used for a different plant entirely. Trust the Indonesian or Malay word, kencur or cekur, over the English one.

Frequently asked questions

Is kencur the same as galangal?

No. They are different plants in the same family and they taste clearly different. Galangal, or lengkuas, is large, hard and piney-citrusy. Kencur is small, soft and camphorous with a bitter edge. Galangal is the usual substitute because it is far easier to buy, but a dish made with it tastes brighter and less medicinal, so reduce the quantity slightly.

Is kencur lesser galangal?

It is sometimes labelled that way, and that is the source of a lot of confusion. English-language shops use lesser galangal for both Kaempferia galanga, which is kencur, and Alpinia officinarum, which is a different rhizome. If you want kencur, look for the Indonesian or Malay name on the packet, or for the botanical name Kaempferia galanga.

Can I use ground ginger instead of kencur?

It will not taste right, but it will not ruin a dish either. Ground ginger is sweet and hot with none of kencur's camphor or bitterness, so use it at one for one with a tiny scrape of nutmeg and expect the dish to read as gingery. In a paste with many other aromatics you will get away with it; in beras kencur you will not.

Can I just leave kencur out of pecel?

Pecel peanut sauce without kencur is still a good peanut sauce, but the specific Javanese character comes largely from the kencur, so it will taste generic rather than wrong. If you have galangal, use a little as described above; if you have nothing, add a squeeze of lime and a little extra tamarind so the sauce still has some lift.

How much kencur powder equals fresh kencur?

About half a teaspoon of powder for every teaspoon of freshly grated rhizome, since drying concentrates the flavour. Bloom the powder in warm oil or a little hot water before adding it to a cold sauce, or it stays gritty and tastes dusty.

Related substitutes

More spices & herbs substitutes

Kencur substitute

Other kencur substitutes

2Galangal (Fresh or Frozen)

3Galangal + a Pinch of Ground Cardamom

4Fingerroot (Krachai)

5Fresh Ginger

6Leave It Out