Lovage substitute

Best substitute

Celery Leaves

3 parts celery leaves to 1 part lovage

Best for soups and broths

Close match

Celery leaves are the closest single swap, but use about three times as much because lovage is far stronger. Celery leaves mixed two to one with flat-leaf parsley gets closer still. Where the recipe wants that savoury broth note rather than a green herb, a quarter to a half teaspoon of Maggi seasoning or soy sauce per tablespoon of chopped lovage does the job. For dried lovage, celery seed swaps one for one. Lovage is contributing aroma and savoury depth rather than colour or bulk, which is why a tiny amount changes a whole pot of soup.

Other lovage substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Celery Leaves With Flat-Leaf Parsley
Close match
2 parts celery leaves to 1 part parsley, using 3 times the volume of lovage
Celery leaves for the celery character and parsley for the peppery, grassy edge, which together approximate more of lovage's complexity than either does alone.
What changes
Best for
soups and broths, green sauces, potato salad, stews, sprinkling over finished dishes
Better than plain celery leaf and the swap most worth making if you have both in the fridge. The parsley supplies a bite and a freshness that celery leaf lacks. It still does not have lovage's savoury weight, so in a soup add a few drops of soy sauce or Maggi to bridge the last of the gap.
3Maggi Seasoning or Soy Sauce
Taste and texture differ
Use ¼ to ½ tsp for every tablespoon of chopped fresh lovage
A few drops of the savoury liquid seasoning that lovage is popularly, if wrongly, believed to be made from, added at the end of cooking.
What changes
Best for
soups and broths, stews, gravies, bean and lentil dishes, vegetable stock
This is a flavour swap rather than a herb swap, and it is very effective at exactly one thing: putting back the savoury, broth-like depth that makes lovage distinctive. There is no fresh green aroma at all, and it adds salt, so cut the recipe's salt accordingly. Wonderful in a soup, wrong in a fresh green sauce where the herb is meant to taste raw and leafy.
4Celery Seed
Different texture
Use ¼ tsp for every tablespoon of chopped fresh lovage, or 1:1 for dried lovage
The tiny seeds of wild celery, closely related to lovage seed and much more concentrated than any leaf.
What changes
Best for
long-simmered soups, brines and rubs, bread and savoury baking, potato and egg dishes, stocks
Correct in direction and very economical, and the best answer when your recipe calls for dried lovage rather than fresh. It is warmer and a little bitter compared with lovage's green savouriness, and it turns dusty and slightly medicinal if you overdo it, so stay at or below the ratio. Add it early so it has time to soften and infuse.
5Minced Celery Stalk With Parsley
Different texture
Use 2 tbsp minced celery + 1 tbsp parsley for every tablespoon of chopped lovage
Celery stalk chopped very fine along with parsley, giving you the flavour family plus a little body, for cooked dishes where extra vegetable does no harm.
What changes
Best for
broths and stocks, soups, braises, stews, bean pots
Perfectly good in anything simmered, since the celery softens and gives up its flavour to the liquid. It brings water and texture as well as flavour, so it is the wrong choice in Frankfurter Gruene Sosse or any raw blended herb sauce, where you want only tender leaves and stalk would make it stringy and watery.
6Chervil With Celery Leaf (For Raw Green Sauces)
Different taste
3 parts of the mix to 1 part lovage, plus a few drops of Maggi
Soft anise-scented chervil blended with celery leaf, for the specific case of a raw herb sauce such as Frankfurter Gruene Sosse where lovage appears alongside six other herbs.
What changes
Best for
Frankfurter Gruene Sosse, raw herb sauces, herb butters, cold sauces for eggs and potatoes
The right choice for uncooked applications because chervil is tender and delicate and blends smoothly. Together they are noticeably lighter than lovage and miss its savoury weight entirely, which is why a few drops of Maggi seasoning or a pinch of celery salt makes such a difference here. Add chervil at the last moment; heat destroys it.

What is Lovage?

Lovage is Lovage is a tall perennial herb whose leaves, hollow stems and seeds taste like an intensified cross between celery and parsley with a savoury, almost broth-like depth, and it is known in German as Liebstoeckel or Maggikraut because it tastes so much like Maggi seasoning.

Cooking tips

Lovage is much stronger than its soft, parsley-like leaves suggest. Start with about a third of the quantity you would use of parsley, taste, and add more. Overdone it turns soapy and medicinal and takes over an entire pot, which is the single most common complaint from people cooking with it for the first time.
Use the stems as well as the leaves, and use them differently. The hollow stalks and thick stems hold most of the flavour, so add them to a simmering broth at the start and fish them out later; save the tender leaves for the last few minutes so their aroma survives.
Dried lovage loses the fresh green top notes but keeps the savoury depth, which makes it useful in soups and stews and useless in a raw green sauce. Use about 1 teaspoon of dried per tablespoon of fresh, and expect something closer to celery seed than to a fresh herb.
Freeze lovage rather than drying it if you grow it or find a bunch. Chop the leaves, pack them into an ice cube tray, top with water and freeze; they hold their aroma for months and drop straight into a soup pot.
Lovage is in the same family as celery, so anyone with a celery allergy should treat lovage the same way and avoid it. This cuts both ways when substituting, since celery leaf and celery seed are no help to that person and the Maggi or soy sauce route is the one to use.
Its natural partners are potatoes, white beans, lentils, chicken broth, tomato soup and anything with a lot of onion. If you have lovage and are not sure what to do with it, a potato and lovage soup is the classic introduction.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best substitute for lovage?

Celery leaves, using about three times the volume because lovage is far more intense, and better still celery leaves mixed two to one with flat-leaf parsley. That combination gets the flavour family and the peppery edge right. What it misses is lovage's savoury, broth-like weight, and the fastest way to add that back in a cooked dish is a quarter teaspoon of Maggi seasoning or soy sauce per tablespoon of lovage the recipe called for. Using the celery leaf mix and the Maggi together is as close as you will get.

Can I use celery instead of lovage?

Yes, and it is the right instinct, since lovage and celery are close botanical relatives. Use the leaves rather than the stalk where you can, especially the pale tender ones from the heart, and use roughly three times as much as the lovage called for. Minced celery stalk works fine in soups and broths where the extra vegetable and water are harmless, but it is wrong in a raw green sauce, where it makes things stringy and dilute. Neither has lovage's savoury depth, so the dish will taste lighter and greener.

Can I just leave the lovage out?

Usually yes, without disaster, because lovage is an aromatic rather than a structural ingredient. What you lose is a savoury background note, so a Gemuesebruehe or a lentil Eintopf made without it tastes noticeably thinner and less rounded. If you are leaving it out, add either a stick of celery with its leaves or, in a soup or stew, a quarter teaspoon of soy sauce or Maggi seasoning per serving, which covers most of the loss. In Frankfurter Gruene Sosse, where lovage is one of seven named herbs, simply increase the others.

Is lovage the same as Maggi seasoning?

No, though the German nickname Maggikraut, meaning Maggi herb, has convinced generations of cooks otherwise. Maggi seasoning is a manufactured liquid seasoning based on hydrolysed vegetable protein and contains no lovage. The resemblance runs the other way: lovage happens to taste remarkably like Maggi, which is why the herb got the nickname. Practically this is useful information, because it means a few drops of Maggi genuinely do replace lovage's savoury character in a soup, while adding salt and none of the fresh green aroma.

Where can I buy lovage, and can I grow it?

It is very rarely stocked in North American supermarkets, occasionally appears at farmers markets in late spring, and turns up in German, Polish and Eastern European groceries as dried Liebstoeckel or as part of a soup-greens bundle. Growing it is genuinely the practical fix if you cook German or Central European food regularly: it is an easy hardy perennial from seed, it comes back every year, and one plant reaching five or six feet produces far more than a household can use. That is why the herb is common in home gardens and almost absent from shops.

Related substitutes

More herbs substitutes

Lovage substitute

Other lovage substitutes

2Celery Leaves With Flat-Leaf Parsley

3Maggi Seasoning or Soy Sauce

4Celery Seed

5Minced Celery Stalk With Parsley

6Chervil With Celery Leaf (For Raw Green Sauces)