Longan substitute

Best substitute

Lychee, Fresh or Canned

Use the same amount as the longan you are replacing

Best for che and sweet soups

Different taste

Which longan you need changes the answer completely. Fresh or canned longan is sweetness plus a musky perfume plus a soft slippery texture, and lychee is the obvious swap at 1:1, though lychee is noticeably more floral, more acidic and more perfumed, so a che made with it tastes brighter and more scented rather than round and honeyed. Rambutan is closer than lychee if your shop has it. Dried longan is a different ingredient doing a different job, adding a smoky raisin-like sweetness and body to sweet soups and teas, and there dried red dates or plain raisins are the sensible substitutes. Canned longan in syrup, sitting on the shelf of any Asian grocery, is usually the real answer to a fresh-longan problem.

Other longan substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Canned Longan in Syrup
Different texture
Use the same amount reduce added sugar by about a third
The practical answer when fresh longan is out of season, which is most of the year.
What changes
It is the same fruit, softer and considerably sweeter from the syrup, and it has lost some of the fresh musky perfume, but it is unmistakably longan and it costs very little. Most Vietnamese che made outside Vietnam uses it.
Best for
che and dessert soups, sweet drinks, longan and lotus seed dessert, year-round cooking
Use some of the can syrup as part of the liquid and cut the recipe's sugar accordingly. Add the fruit at the end off the heat, because it turns to mush if simmered.
3Rambutan
Close match
Use the same amount
Botanically the closest relative of the three and the best flesh match.
What changes
Peeled rambutan is translucent, juicy and mildly sweet with only a faint floral note, which puts it between longan and lychee and honestly closer to longan. It is larger and a little firmer, and the flesh sometimes clings to the seed, so cut around it.
Best for
che and sweet soups, fruit cups, desserts, drinks
Canned rambutan is usually stuffed with pineapple, which will change the flavour. Read the label and buy plain if you can.
4Peeled Green Grapes
Different taste
Use the same amount
The everyday-supermarket workaround, and it does more than you would expect.
What changes
Peeled seedless green grapes are translucent, juicy, sweetly acidic and roughly the right size and slipperiness in a fruit cup or a bowl of che. They taste of grape rather than of anything tropical, so nobody will be fooled, but nothing about the dish is spoiled either.
Best for
fruit cups and che thai, cold desserts, when no Asian grocery is nearby
Blanch them for ten seconds and the skins slip off easily. Unpeeled they are too firm and the skin ruins the resemblance completely.
5Dried Red Dates (Jujube), for Dried Longan
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight
The right substitute when the recipe calls for dried longan rather than fresh.
What changes
Dried jujube brings the same concentrated dark sweetness and gentle body to a sweet soup or a tea, with an apple-and-date character instead of longan's smoky honeyed note. Chewier and less melting, and they tint the liquid a deeper red-brown.
Best for
sweet soups and tong sui, longan and red date tea, congee, braises
Snip them open and discard the stone before simmering, so the flavour gets out and nobody bites down on it.
6Raisins or Golden Raisins, for Dried Longan
Different taste
3:4
A blunt but effective swap in the dried-longan slot.
What changes
Raisins give the same concentrated sweetness and plump up the same way, but they are more strongly grapey and considerably sweeter, so use a little less. Golden raisins are the better choice because they are milder and do not darken the liquid the way dark raisins do.
Best for
sweet soups, teas and infusions, sticky rice and puddings
Add them in the last ten minutes. Simmered long they dissolve into the syrup and thicken it more than dried longan would.

What is Longan?

Longan is a small tan-shelled tropical fruit with translucent white flesh around a single dark seed, called nhan in Vietnamese and sometimes dragon eye fruit, and it tastes sweeter, muskier and less floral than lychee.

Cooking tips

Fresh longan shells crack open with a thumbnail like a soft eggshell, no knife needed. Squeeze gently at the stem end and the flesh pops out whole.
The seed is large, black and slippery and it does not release cleanly. For a dessert, slit each fruit and push the seed out from the side rather than trying to pull the flesh off it.
Fresh longan and lychee both go into a hot dessert at the very end, off the heat. Even two minutes of simmering turns the delicate flesh grainy and washes the perfume straight out.
Dried longan is a completely different ingredient from fresh and is not interchangeable in a recipe. It needs fifteen to twenty minutes of simmering to soften and it makes the liquid sweet and faintly smoky, which fresh longan never does.
Fresh longan lasts only about five days and the shell browning is normal rather than a sign of spoilage. Judge it by squeezing: firm is fine, squashy and leaking means done.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use lychee instead of longan?

Yes, at 1:1, and it is the most common swap. Just know what changes: lychee is more acidic and much more floral, with a rose-like perfume, where longan is rounder, honeyed and slightly musky. A dessert made with lychee tastes brighter and more scented. A tiny pinch of salt in the bowl pulls the floral edge back and gets you closer to longan.

What is the difference between longan and lychee?

Longan is smaller with a smooth thin tan shell and flesh that is sweeter, softer and muskier with almost no acidity. Lychee is larger with a bumpy pink-red shell and flesh that is firmer, more acidic and strongly floral. They are related, they are used in the same dishes, and they substitute for each other perfectly well as long as you expect a change in perfume.

Can I leave longan out of che?

It depends on the che. In a mixed fruit che thai with several fruits, yes, and you can simply use more of the others. In che nhan hat sen, longan and lotus seed dessert, no, since longan is half the dish. In that case use canned longan, canned lychee or rambutan rather than skipping it, all of which give you the sweet slippery fruit the dessert is built around.

Is dried longan the same as fresh longan?

No, and swapping them causes real problems. Dried longan is dark, chewy and intensely sweet with a smoky caramel note, used to flavour teas and sweet soups, and it needs simmering. Fresh longan is delicate, juicy and perfumed and is added at the end without cooking. If your recipe says dried, use dried jujube or raisins as a substitute, not fresh fruit.

Where do I buy longan?

Fresh longan turns up in Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai groceries in summer, sold on the branch or in bags. Canned longan in syrup is available year-round in the same shops for very little money and is what most home cooks use. Dried longan is in the dried goods aisle near the jujubes and goji berries, usually shelled and loose in bags.

Related substitutes

More fruits substitutes

Longan substitute

Other longan substitutes

2Canned Longan in Syrup

3Rambutan

4Peeled Green Grapes

5Dried Red Dates (Jujube), for Dried Longan

6Raisins or Golden Raisins, for Dried Longan