Perilla Oil substitute

Best substitute

Toasted sesame oil

Use the same amount as the perilla oil you are replacing

Best for namul

Different taste

Toasted sesame oil is the swap almost everyone reaches for, 1:1, and it is genuinely close. Expect the dish to taste deeper and more roasted but less green and fresh, because perilla has a bright herbal edge that sesame does not. The best fix is toasted sesame oil with a little walnut oil stirred in, roughly three parts sesame to one part walnut, which pulls the flavor back toward perilla's lighter, grassier register. Straight walnut oil is the closest match for cold dishes and dressings. Despite the name on some bottles, perilla oil is not sesame oil and contains no sesame at all.

Other perilla oil substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Toasted sesame oil plus walnut oil
Close match
3 parts sesame oil to 1 part walnut oil, used 1:1 for the perilla oil
The closest thing you can build from ordinary shop ingredients, and noticeably better than sesame alone.
What changes
The sesame supplies the roasted seed backbone and the walnut oil supplies the lighter, greener, slightly tannic top note that perilla has and sesame lacks. Blended, it stops the dish from tasting quite so heavy. Mix it in a spoon before adding rather than pouring both into the pan, so the ratio stays right.
Best for
namul, cold vegetable side dishes, rice bowls, noodle dressings, gim
Do not push past about a quarter walnut oil or the dressing starts to taste bitter and a little woody.
3Walnut oil
Close match
Use the same amount
In flavor category this is arguably the nearest single oil, because both are delicate, cold-pressed, green-nutty oils rather than deeply roasted ones.
What changes
Walnut lacks the toasted aroma perilla gets from roasting the seeds, so a dish made with it tastes clean and nutty but less perfumed, and walnut's slight tannic bitterness shows up more in a bare dressing than in a soup. Excellent over cold seasoned vegetables and in dressings. Less convincing stirred into hot stew, where you really want that roasted smell rising off the bowl.
Best for
salad dressings, cold namul, drizzling over rice, tofu dishes
Buy it small and keep it in the fridge. Walnut oil turns rancid faster than almost anything else on the shelf.
4Flaxseed oil, cut with sesame oil
Different taste
half flaxseed oil, half toasted sesame oil, used 1:1
Flaxseed oil, also sold as linseed oil, is the closest thing nutritionally, since both perilla and flax are unusually high in alpha-linolenic acid, and it shares perilla's grassy, faintly marine bitterness.
What changes
On its own it is too bitter and too fishy for most dishes, which is why cutting it with sesame oil works so much better than using it neat. Taste the flaxseed oil first. If it tastes like old paint it has oxidised, and it will ruin the dish rather than season it.
Best for
cold dishes, dressings, drizzling, health-focused cooking
Never heat flaxseed oil. It has a very low smoke point and degrades into something acrid almost immediately.
5Ground perilla seed powder in neutral oil
Different texture
Use 1 teaspoon deulkkae powder for every 1 tablespoon neutral oil
If your Korean grocery has the ground perilla seed, deulkkae garu, but not the oil, this gets you the actual flavor rather than an approximation.
What changes
Stir the powder into warm neutral oil and let it sit for ten minutes, or just add the powder straight to the dish along with plain oil. The texture is different, slightly gritty and cloudy where the oil is clear and smooth, but the aroma is right because it is the same seed. This is also how the powder is used in its own right, thickening soups like deulkkae-tang.
Best for
soups, stews, braised greens, namul, deulkkae dishes
Perilla seed powder goes stale fast. Keep it in the freezer and smell it before use.
6No good substitute: perilla-forward dishes
Different taste
There are dishes where perilla oil is the entire point and any swap gives you a different dish rather than a version of the same one.
What changes
Deulkkae-tang, perilla seed soup, is built on perilla. Deulgireum makguksu, buckwheat noodles dressed with nothing but perilla oil, soy and gim, has nowhere to hide. Simple gim seasoned with perilla oil and salt tastes distinctly of perilla and nothing else. The least-bad option is toasted sesame oil with a few torn perilla leaves, and the honest expectation is a good bowl of food that a Korean cook would immediately clock as not the real thing. If you can order one bottle online, this is the ingredient worth ordering.
Best for
knowing when to stop substituting
A bottle keeps a few months in the fridge, so buying it once covers a lot of cooking.

What is Perilla Oil?

Perilla Oil is a dark amber oil pressed from roasted perilla seeds, known in Korean as deulgireum and sometimes labeled wild sesame oil or shiso oil, that tastes nutty, grassy and faintly minty and is used as a finishing seasoning rather than a cooking fat.

Cooking tips

Perilla oil is a finishing oil, not a frying oil. It is very high in polyunsaturated fat, so it smokes low, goes bitter fast and loses the whole point of itself in a hot wok. Cook with a neutral oil and add the perilla oil after the heat is off.
It goes rancid faster than sesame oil, in weeks rather than months once opened. Keep the bottle in the fridge and smell it each time. Fresh deulgireum smells nutty and faintly grassy, while oxidised perilla oil smells sharply of old fish or crayons and will make a dish taste wrong in a way you cannot fix.
Ignore the words wild sesame oil on the label. Perilla is a mint relative and contains no sesame, which matters if you are cooking for someone with a sesame allergy, and it also means the flavor is not simply a milder version of sesame oil.
In namul, the oil goes on at the very end along with the salt, so measure by taste. Squeeze the blanched greens dry first, because oil will not cling to wet spinach and you will get a watery bowl with a slick on top.
Perilla oil and sesame oil are worth having side by side rather than treating as interchangeable. Sesame goes on things you want to taste rich and toasty, perilla goes on greens, seaweed and rice where you want the dish to taste light and fresh.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave perilla oil out?

In a dish with gochujang, garlic, soy and doenjang doing the heavy lifting, yes, and hardly anyone will notice. In blanched-vegetable namul, seasoned gim or plain rice, no, because the oil is most of the seasoning and without it you have salted vegetables. In those cases use a smaller amount of toasted sesame oil rather than nothing, and add a squeeze of lemon or a pinch of sugar to make the dish taste finished.

Is perilla oil the same as sesame oil?

No, despite bottles labeled wild sesame oil. Perilla is Perilla frutescens, a member of the mint family, and the same plant that gives you Korean kkaennip leaves and Japanese shiso. The oil tastes greener, lighter and faintly herbal, where toasted sesame oil is heavier and more deeply roasted. Anyone with a sesame allergy should know that perilla oil is not sesame, and vice versa.

Can I cook with perilla oil or only use it raw?

Treat it as raw. It has a low smoke point and an extremely delicate aroma, so a minute in a hot pan destroys both. The traditional use is a spoonful stirred in after cooking, tossed through blanched greens, brushed onto seaweed before toasting briefly at low heat, or drizzled over a finished bowl of noodles. If a Korean recipe seems to be frying in it, it is usually a gentle, low-heat toss rather than real frying.

What is the best substitute for perilla oil in japchae or gimbap?

Toasted sesame oil, 1:1, and both dishes take it well because sesame oil is already traditional in them. Japchae is usually made with sesame oil anyway, so you lose nothing. In gimbap, the perilla version tastes brighter and the sesame version tastes richer. If you want to split the difference, use three parts sesame oil to one part walnut oil.

My perilla oil smells fishy. Is it off?

Almost certainly, yes. A faint green, nutty, slightly grassy smell is correct. A sharp fishy, paint-like or crayon smell means the omega-3 fats have oxidised, and that flavor only gets stronger in the dish. Throw it out. To avoid it next time, buy the smallest bottle you can find and store it in the fridge from the day you open it.

Related substitutes

More oils & fats substitutes

Perilla Oil substitute

Other perilla oil substitutes

2Toasted sesame oil plus walnut oil

3Walnut oil

4Flaxseed oil, cut with sesame oil

5Ground perilla seed powder in neutral oil

6No good substitute: perilla-forward dishes