Poppy Seed Filling substitute

Best substitute

Home-ground poppy seed filling

200g seeds makes roughly one 12-ounce can

Best for makowiec and poppy seed roll

Close match

Simmer 200g poppy seeds in 250ml milk for 10 minutes, drain, grind in short bursts in a spice grinder, then cook with 100g sugar, 1 tablespoon honey, lemon zest and 1 tablespoon butter until it holds a shape. Less sweet and much more fragrant than the canned version.

Other poppy seed filling substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Ground walnut or hazelnut filling
Different taste
Use the same amount
Grind 200g walnuts or hazelnuts, warm with 150ml milk, 100g sugar and a little butter until thick.
What changes
Not a substitute so much as the traditional sibling filling, since walnut roll is baked in exactly the same dough. Lighter in colour, sweeter, buttery and nutty instead of dark and faintly bitter.
Best for
nut roll and orechovnik, kolache, hamantaschen, strudel
The best swap if you cannot grind poppy seeds, because the pastry behaves identically and nobody will think anything has gone wrong. Toast the nuts lightly first for more flavour.
3Almond paste or marzipan loosened with milk
Different taste
200g paste plus 3-4 tbsp milk, used 1:1
Beat the milk into the paste until it is spreadable.
What changes
Right stiffness, right richness, and it holds in a rolled pastry perfectly. Distinctly almond and noticeably sweeter than poppy filling, and pale gold rather than near-black, so the sliced spiral looks quite different.
Best for
hamantaschen, kolache, filled buns, strudel
Marzipan is sweeter than almond paste, so cut some sugar elsewhere if you use it. Use this when the flavour matters more than the appearance; if the dark spiral is the point, it is the wrong choice.
4Ground poppy seeds mixed with almond paste
Close match
Use the same amount by weight, used 1:1 for the filling
The practical fix when you have only a small bag of seeds or when your grinder has left them coarse.
What changes
The almond paste smooths the texture, binds the mixture and stretches it, while the poppy seeds carry the colour and the characteristic aroma.
Best for
makowiec, hamantaschen, kolache, when short on poppy seeds
Genuinely good rather than a compromise, and it forgives an imperfect grind. Add lemon zest, since the almond paste's sweetness needs cutting.
5Lekvar or prune filling
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
A completely different flavour occupying exactly the same traditional role in the same pastries.
What changes
Expect a tangy, dark, fruity roll rather than a nutty one, and a pastry that behaves the same in the oven provided the filling is stiff.
Best for
kolache, hamantaschen, filled buns, crepes
Best when you have no seeds and no nuts at all. Because it is fruit rather than fat and seed, it is looser, so chill the filled pastries before baking so it does not spread.
6Whole poppy seeds in a sweetened milk base
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
The honest least-bad option.
What changes
Cook whole seeds with milk, sugar and a little semolina or breadcrumb to thicken. The seeds stay intact, so the filling is gritty between the teeth, the roll is drier, and most of the poppy aroma never appears because it lives inside the crushed seed.
Best for
emergencies with no grinder, hamantaschen, sprinkled fillings
Do this only if you genuinely cannot grind. Even a rough grind in a coffee grinder, a mortar or a blender with enough volume to catch is a large improvement over whole seeds.

What is Poppy Seed Filling?

Poppy Seed Filling is a thick, sweet, near-black paste of ground poppy seeds cooked down with milk, sugar and usually honey and lemon, called mak in Polish and sold in cans as poppy seed pastry filling, and the job it does in a recipe is moist, nutty, spreadable bulk inside makowiec, kolache, hamantaschen and beigli.

Cooking tips

Soften the seeds before grinding, either by scalding them with boiling water and draining or by simmering them in milk for ten minutes. Dry poppy seeds skid around a grinder and come out whole, while softened seeds break open and release the oil that gives the filling its aroma and its dark, glossy body.
A coffee or spice grinder used in short bursts works far better than a food processor, whose blade sits too high to catch a small quantity. A blender needs enough volume to create a vortex, so grind at least a full cup at once or the seeds simply spin.
Canned filling is much sweeter and much softer than anything homemade. If you swap homemade filling into a recipe written around a can, add two or three extra tablespoons of sugar, and if you swap the can into a recipe written for homemade, cut a little sugar from the dough.
Poppy seeds are very oily and go rancid quickly, and rancid seeds ruin the filling in a way sugar cannot hide. Smell them before you start: they should smell nutty and faintly sweet, and anything bitter, sharp or paint-like means throw them out. Store them in the freezer.
Chill the filled roll before baking and cut a few vents in the top. Poppy filling holds a lot of moisture and steams hard in the oven, and an unvented makowiec will split along its side and push filling out.
Roughly 200g of poppy seeds, once softened and cooked with milk and sugar, gives about the same volume as one standard 12-ounce can of filling, so scale from there rather than weighing the finished paste.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use whole poppy seeds instead of poppy seed filling?

Not well, and this is the one substitution that genuinely does not work. The flavour and the smooth dark body of poppy filling both come from crushing the seed, and whole seeds cooked in milk and sugar give a gritty, sandy filling with far less aroma. Grinding them, even roughly in a coffee grinder, takes about five minutes and transforms the result.

What is the best substitute for canned poppy seed filling?

Grinding your own, which is closer to the traditional filling and tastes better besides. Simmer 200g of poppy seeds in milk for ten minutes, drain, grind, then cook with sugar, honey, lemon zest and butter until thick. If grinding is not an option, a ground walnut filling is the best swap, since walnut roll is the traditional partner to poppy roll and uses the identical dough.

Can I leave the poppy seed filling out?

Not from a filled pastry, since the filling is the pastry's reason to exist and a makowiec without mak is just a plain roll. What you can do is substitute another filling that belongs in the same dough: walnut, almond paste, lekvar or prune, or sweetened farmer's cheese all work in the same recipes and none of them will look out of place.

Is poppy seed filling the same as poppy seeds?

No, and it is worth knowing before you shop. Poppy seeds are the raw whole seed sold in the spice aisle. Poppy seed filling is a cooked sweet paste of ground seeds with milk, sugar and honey, sold in cans near the pie fillings. A recipe asking for filling wants the paste, and buying a bag of seeds means you still have the grinding and cooking to do.

How much poppy seed filling does a can hold, and how do I match it?

Standard cans are around 12 ounces, and about 200g of poppy seeds, once softened and cooked with roughly 250ml of milk, 100g of sugar and a spoonful of honey, produces a similar volume. Homemade filling is stiffer and less sweet, so taste it and add sugar if the recipe was written around the canned product.

Related substitutes

More baking substitutes

Poppy Seed Filling substitute

Other poppy seed filling substitutes

2Ground walnut or hazelnut filling

3Almond paste or marzipan loosened with milk

4Ground poppy seeds mixed with almond paste

5Lekvar or prune filling

6Whole poppy seeds in a sweetened milk base