Pomegranate Seeds (Arils) substitute

Best substitute

Frozen pomegranate arils

Use the same amount as the pomegranate seeds (arils) you are replacing

Best for fattoush, tabbouleh and salads

Close match

Frozen pomegranate arils are the real answer and they thaw with almost all their flavour intact, so check the freezer aisle first. Otherwise the best swap depends on which part of the job you care about: fresh redcurrants give you the closest tart burst, dried barberries soaked for ten minutes give you the sharp sourness and the red colour with no pop, and toasted pine nuts or chopped pistachios with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses is what Levantine cooks actually do out of season - the nuts do the crunch and the molasses does the tart-sweet gloss. Arils do three jobs and no substitute does all three: a burst of liquid, a sharp sweet-tart hit, and vivid colour against a pale dish.

Other pomegranate seeds (arils) substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Fresh redcurrants
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume, or slightly less
The best fresh substitute for the sensation of pomegranate arils, because redcurrants are also small translucent sacs of tart juice that burst under the teeth.
What changes
The colour is right and the pop is right. What changes: redcurrants are more sour and less sweet than arils, and they have no crunchy inner seed, so you lose the faint nutty bite that arils have and the dish tastes sharper. On a labneh plate or a rice dish that sharpness is often welcome. They are highly seasonal, appearing in summer, which conveniently is when pomegranates are not around.
Best for
salads and grain bowls, garnishing labneh, yogurt and cheese, roast lamb and duck, desserts
Strip them off the stems with a fork rather than your fingers, which crushes them. Because they are tarter than arils, a scant pinch of sugar or a drizzle of honey over them first brings them closer if the dish is a sweet one.
3Toasted pine nuts or pistachios plus pomegranate molasses
Different texture
Use 2 tbsp nuts plus 1 to 2 tsp molasses for every ½ cup arils
This is what a Levantine cook does in June, and it is a better answer than most single-ingredient swaps because it splits the job in two.
What changes
The toasted nuts take over the textural contrast - a crunch against the soft dip or salad - while the molasses supplies the tart-sweet, deeply pomegranate flavour and a dark glossy drizzle for visual contrast. What changes: the crunch is dry and nutty rather than a burst of juice, and the colour is mahogany rather than jewel red. On muhammara, hummus, labneh, fattoush or a plate of rice the result is genuinely excellent and does not read as a compromise.
Best for
muhammara, hummus and labneh, fattoush and chopped salads, rice and freekeh dishes, roast aubergine and cauliflower
Toast the nuts in a dry pan until they smell nutty and are just golden, not brown - pine nuts go from perfect to burnt in about twenty seconds. Drizzle the molasses at the very last moment, since it soaks in and disappears if it sits.
4Dried barberries (zereshk), soaked
Taste and texture differ
About half the volume of the arils, soaked in warm water for 10 minutes and drained
The Persian pantry answer, and outstanding for the sour-red-jewel role.
What changes
Barberries are small, bright red and intensely sour, and after a short soak they plump into soft tart beads that scatter beautifully. What changes: no pop at all - they are soft and chewy rather than juicy - and they are far more sour than arils, which is why you use half as much. On a rice dish, a roast chicken or a grain salad they are arguably better than pomegranate seeds. On a fresh fruit-forward dessert they are too aggressive.
Best for
rice dishes and pilafs, roast chicken and lamb, grain and lentil salads, stuffings
Rinse them well first, since they often carry grit, and soak briefly - too long and they turn to mush. A common Persian treatment is a quick toss in butter with a pinch of sugar over low heat for a minute, which softens the sourness and makes them glossy. Do not let them scorch, they burn fast and turn bitter.
5Dried cranberries or dried sour cherries, chopped
Taste and texture differ
About ⅔ the volume, chopped small, plus a squeeze of lemon
The most likely thing to already be in your cupboard, and perfectly serviceable for colour and a fruity note.
What changes
What changes: a good deal. Dried cranberries are sweetened and chewy, so where arils give a tart burst you get sugary chew, and a salad dressed with them tastes distinctly sweeter and less refreshing. Chopping them small helps them scatter like arils rather than sitting in lumps, and a squeeze of lemon or a few drops of pomegranate molasses tossed through them restores enough sourness to keep the dish balanced. Dried sour cherries are the better of the two, being less sweet.
Best for
grain salads, couscous and rice, stuffings and roasts, when only pantry ingredients are available
Soak them in warm water or lemon juice for ten minutes first so they are plump rather than leathery. Reduce any other sweetener in the dish, since sweetened dried fruit will tip a dressing off balance quickly.
6Fresh red grapes or tart cherries, quartered
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume, cut small
The route to take when what you mainly need is a juicy burst and some red on the plate.
What changes
Quartered seedless red grapes are crisp and release juice when bitten, and sour cherries even more so. What changes: scale and sweetness. Grapes are far larger than arils even quartered, so instead of a fine scatter you get chunks, and they are much sweeter and rounder, which makes a savoury salad read as a fruit salad. In a dish that already leans sweet, or one with sharp cheese and bitter leaves to balance it, they work well.
Best for
salads with feta or bitter leaves, roast pork, duck and chicken, cheese plates, yogurt and dessert bowls
Cut them small and pat them dry, or the juice will bleed and make a dressed salad soggy. A squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt over the cut fruit sharpens it noticeably and is worth doing.
7A dusting of sumac, when you only need the sour lift
Taste and texture differ
½ to 1 tsp sumac in place of a garnish of arils
The honest minimalist option, and the right one surprisingly often.
What changes
Sumac is ground dried berry with a dry, lemony sourness and a deep red colour, and on labneh, hummus, roast vegetables or a fattoush it delivers the tart brightness and the red flecks that pomegranate seeds were there to provide. What changes: no texture whatsoever, and no burst of juice, so a dish that relied on arils for contrast against something soft will feel flat in the mouth. Pair it with toasted nuts if the crunch mattered. As a flavour move alone it is excellent and takes no shopping.
Best for
labneh, hummus and yogurt dips, fattoush and chopped salads, roast aubergine, cauliflower and chicken, flatbreads
Sprinkle it at the table rather than in the kitchen - sumac dulls and turns brownish within a few minutes of hitting anything wet or oily. If your sumac is heavily salted, which many brands are, taste the dish before seasoning further.

What is Pomegranate Seeds (Arils)?

Pomegranate Seeds (Arils) is Pomegranate seeds, properly called arils, are the ruby-red jewels packed inside a pomegranate - each one a crisp pocket of sweet-tart juice wrapped around a small crunchy seed - and they are used almost entirely as a scattered finishing garnish rather than cooked into a dish.

Cooking tips

The easiest way to get the arils out is to halve the pomegranate through its equator, hold a half cut-side down over a bowl and whack the skin firmly all over with the back of a wooden spoon. They rain out in seconds. Doing it with the halves submerged in a bowl of water is even cleaner and the bitter white pith floats to the top where you can skim it off.
Keep every scrap of the white pith and membrane out. It is genuinely bitter, and a few papery fragments hiding in a bowl of arils will make an otherwise bright salad taste unpleasantly astringent.
Scatter them at the very last second, ideally at the table. Arils lose their sheen and start to weep within a few minutes of meeting dressing or warm food, and a fattoush garnished ten minutes early has pink dressing and dull seeds instead of gleaming red jewels.
One pomegranate yields roughly three quarters of a cup to a cup of arils, so a recipe asking for half a cup needs one fruit. If you have a glut in autumn, freeze the arils spread out in a single layer on a tray, then bag them once solid - they keep for months and stay separate rather than clumping.
Arils are a texture and acid garnish, not a flavour base. If a recipe uses pomegranate for its actual flavour - a glaze, a dressing, a syrup - reach for pomegranate molasses or juice instead, which is what those recipes want anyway and what no scattering of seeds can deliver.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave pomegranate seeds out?

Yes, more safely than almost any other ingredient - they are a finishing garnish and nothing in the dish depends on them structurally. But they are not doing nothing. On muhammara, fattoush, a rice dish or a bowl of labneh they provide a burst of tart juice against something soft and rich, plus a visual jolt of red, and both of those are a real part of the pleasure. If you skip them, add a squeeze of lemon or a dusting of sumac for the acid and some toasted nuts for the crunch, and the dish will still be balanced.

Can I use pomegranate juice or molasses instead of the seeds?

For flavour yes, for garnish no. Pomegranate molasses is concentrated, tart, sweet and dark, and a drizzle over hummus, roast vegetables or a salad gives you a strong pomegranate flavour that the seeds themselves barely provide. What it cannot do is give you texture or jewel-red colour, and pouring juice over a finished dish will just make it wet. The best out-of-season solution is molasses for the flavour and toasted pine nuts or pistachios for the crunch.

What is the difference between pomegranate seeds and arils?

The aril is the whole juicy red sac; the seed is the small crunchy kernel inside it. In everyday cooking the words are used interchangeably, and a recipe calling for pomegranate seeds means the arils - the red jewels, seed and all. The crunchy inner seed is entirely edible and gives arils a faint nutty bite, though some people prefer to chew the juice out and spit the seed, which is a matter of habit rather than necessity.

Are pomegranate seeds available year round?

Whole pomegranates are a late-autumn and winter fruit in the Northern Hemisphere, roughly October through February, with imported fruit stretching the season further. Out of season they get expensive and the arils inside can be pale and dry even when the skin looks fine. Frozen arils and tubs of pre-podded fresh arils are sold year round in most Middle Eastern grocers and many supermarkets, and the frozen ones are usually a better bet in summer than a tired-looking whole fruit.

What is the closest substitute for the pop of pomegranate seeds?

Fresh redcurrants, because they are also tiny sacs of tart juice that burst when bitten, and after those, quartered sour cherries or small seedless grapes. Nothing else in a normal kitchen reproduces the specific sensation. If a burst of liquid is not achievable, the more satisfying approach is to swap the job rather than the ingredient: toasted pine nuts or pistachios for the contrast in texture, plus lemon, sumac or pomegranate molasses for the acidity.

Related substitutes

More fruits substitutes

Pomegranate Seeds (Arils) substitute

Other pomegranate seeds (arils) substitutes

2Fresh redcurrants

3Toasted pine nuts or pistachios plus pomegranate molasses

4Dried barberries (zereshk), soaked

5Dried cranberries or dried sour cherries, chopped

6Fresh red grapes or tart cherries, quartered

7A dusting of sumac, when you only need the sour lift