Moroccan food has a reputation for being heavily spiced, but everyday Moroccan cooking is more restrained than that. A typical tagine uses four or five spices, in modest amounts, cooked slowly in fat with grated onion until they lose their raw edge and melt into the sauce. The goal is a warm, rounded flavour rather than heat. Chilli plays a small part in most dishes.
This guide covers the spices and flavourings you’ll meet most often in Moroccan recipes: ras el hanout, saffron, cumin, ginger, sweet paprika, cinnamon and turmeric, plus two ingredients that aren’t spices but matter just as much, preserved lemon and smen. For each one you’ll find what it tastes like, how it’s used, what to do if you can’t get it, and how to keep it. There’s also a simple homemade ras el hanout, and tables of typical amounts and substitutions near the end.
The short list
If you’re stocking a cupboard for Moroccan cooking from scratch, start with these. Between them they cover nearly every savoury tagine and most soups and salads.
- Ground ginger
- Ground turmeric
- Ground cumin
- Sweet paprika
- Cinnamon, both sticks and ground
- Black pepper, ground fresh
- Saffron threads
- Ras el hanout, bought or homemade
Add preserved lemons, a bottle of good olive oil, and fresh coriander and flat-leaf parsley, and you can cook either of our tagines.
The spices one by one
Ginger (skinjbir)
Taste: warm, peppery and slightly sweet. Dried ground ginger is earthier and less sharp than fresh root.
How it’s used: ground ginger is the backbone of many savoury tagines, often paired with black pepper, turmeric and saffron. Our lamb tagine with prunes uses 2 teaspoons for 1.5 kg of lamb. Moroccan tagine recipes usually call for ground rather than fresh ginger.
Substitute: fresh ginger works in a pinch, but it tastes brighter and more citrusy. Start with about 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger for each ½ teaspoon ground, and taste as the sauce cooks.
Tip: ground ginger fades faster than most spices. If it no longer smells sharp when you open the jar, replace it.
Turmeric (kharkoum)
Taste: earthy and slightly bitter, with little aroma of its own.
How it’s used: mostly for colour. It gives chicken and fish tagines their golden sauce, and it’s often used with, or in place of, saffron.
Substitute: there’s no flavour substitute, and you can simply leave it out. The sauce will be paler but still good. A pinch of saffron gives colour and much more aroma.
Tip: turmeric stains wooden spoons, chopping boards and plastic. Wipe up spills quickly.
Cumin (kamoun)
Taste: earthy, warm and a little bitter, with a smell many people recognise straight away.
How it’s used: in minced-meat kefta, in chermoula marinades for fish, with lentils and chickpeas, and in cooked salads such as zaalouk (smoky aubergine and tomato). It’s also put on the table mixed with salt, for sprinkling over hard-boiled eggs, grilled meat or bean soups. In tagines it’s used more lightly. Our chicken tajine with apricots uses ½ teaspoon for 1.2 kg of chicken.
Substitute: no spice tastes quite like cumin. Caraway, a close botanical relative, is the nearest in character but has a stronger anise note, so use about half as much. Ground coriander gives warmth without the earthiness.
Tip: for the best flavour, buy whole seeds, toast them in a dry pan for a minute or two until fragrant, and grind them yourself.
Sweet paprika
Taste: mild, sweet and fruity, with no real heat.
How it’s used: in kefta, chermoula, and cooked pepper and tomato salads such as taktouka. It gives a deep red colour to sauces and marinades.
Substitute: any mild, unsmoked paprika. Spanish smoked paprika (pimentón) changes the flavour, so use it only if you like a smoky note, and use less. A little Aleppo pepper adds colour with gentle heat.
Tip: paprika scorches quickly in hot oil and turns bitter. Add it with the onions over moderate heat, or just before the liquid goes in.
Cumin and sweet paprika carry zaalouk, the smoky eggplant salad.
Cinnamon (karfa)
Taste: sweet and woody. Supermarket cinnamon is often cassia, which is stronger and spicier. Ceylon cinnamon is milder and more delicate.
How it’s used: a whole stick goes into many tagines, especially those with fruit. Ground cinnamon goes into sweet glazes, such as the honeyed prunes on our lamb tagine, and is dusted with icing sugar over pastilla, the sweet-savoury pie.
Substitute: there’s no real substitute. A small pinch of allspice gives a similar warmth. If you only have ground cinnamon, use about ½ teaspoon in place of one stick, added with the liquid.
Tip: take the stick out before serving. It has done its job by then, and nobody wants to bite into it.
Saffron (zaafran)
Taste: floral, honeyed and slightly bitter, with a smell sometimes compared to hay. It’s the hardest spice in this list to replace.
How it’s used: in small amounts. Our chicken tajine uses about 15 threads for four people, and the lamb tagine about 25 threads for six. Crumble the threads into a couple of tablespoons of warm water and leave them for 10 minutes or so before adding them, so the colour and aroma spread evenly through the sauce. Morocco grows its own saffron, mainly around Taliouine in the south.
Substitute: turmeric gives the colour but none of the aroma. Leave it out rather than use a large amount of turmeric. In everyday cooking, some Moroccan cooks use a yellow food colouring sold as “saffron colouring”. It gives colour only.
Buying: buy whole threads from a seller you trust. Real saffron threads are deep red and flare out at one end like a small trumpet. They colour warm water gold gradually, over several minutes, not instantly. Cheap ground “saffron” is easy to adulterate with turmeric, paprika or safflower.
Storage: keep it airtight, in the dark. Threads keep their aroma well for a year or two.
Harira uses ginger, turmeric, cinnamon and saffron together.
Ras el hanout
Taste: it varies, and that’s the point. The name means roughly “head of the shop”: traditionally each spice seller’s best blend. Some versions are peppery, some floral with rosebuds and cardamom, some warm with cinnamon and nutmeg, and a few contain chilli. Commercial blends often list a dozen or more spices.
How it’s used: as a seasoning in tagines, with roast or grilled meat, rubbed on vegetables before roasting, and stirred into couscous. Our lamb tagine adds 1 teaspoon to the classic ginger, pepper, turmeric and saffron base. In our chicken tajine, 2 teaspoons can replace the ginger, cinnamon and cumin. Fry it briefly in fat before adding liquid to bring out the flavour.
Substitute: make the blend below, or use a mix of ground cumin, ginger and cinnamon in roughly equal amounts.
Tip: taste a new jar before cooking with it. A strong blend can take over a dish, and more than a teaspoon or two in a pot for four can make the sauce taste muddy.
Black pepper and coriander
Black pepper (ibzar) is used generously in Moroccan savoury cooking. In the classic white-sauced tagines it’s as important as the ginger, so grind it fresh. Ground coriander seed shows up in kefta, in ras el hanout and in some marinades. It’s mild and citrusy, and it loses its aroma quickly once ground.
Fresh coriander and flat-leaf parsley are used so much they’re almost a seasoning of their own. Both of our tagines simmer a small bundle of the two, tied with string, then take it out before serving.
Preserved lemon
Preserved lemons are whole lemons cured in salt and their own juice for several weeks. The rind softens and turns silky, the harsh sourness mellows, and you’re left with an intensely lemony, salty, slightly floral flavour that fresh lemon can’t quite match.
How to use them: take a wedge out of the jar, scrape away the pulp (or keep it for a dressing), rinse the rind and slice or chop it. Add it to tagines near the end, especially chicken with olives, or fold it into salads, couscous and grain dishes. Our chicken tajine uses a quarter of a lemon, rind only, thinly sliced, to cut through the sweetness of the apricots. Because the lemons are salty, taste the sauce before adding more salt.
To make them at home:
- Scrub 5 or 6 unwaxed lemons. Cut each one into quarters from the top, stopping about 1 cm from the base so they stay joined.
- Open each lemon and pack about 1 tablespoon of coarse salt inside.
- Push the lemons tightly into a clean jar, pressing them down so the juice runs out.
- Top up with freshly squeezed lemon juice until the lemons are completely covered.
- Close the jar and keep it at cool room temperature for 3–4 weeks, turning it every day or two. The lemons are ready when the rind is soft.
Once you’ve started using them, keep the jar in the fridge and make sure the lemons stay under the liquid. They last for months that way. If you see fuzzy mould or the jar smells off, throw it out.
Substitute: for each quarter of preserved lemon, use 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest and a squeeze of juice, plus a pinch of salt, stirred in at the end. It brightens the dish, though without the depth of the real thing.
Smen
Smen is salted butter that has been clarified or kneaded, sometimes flavoured with herbs such as wild thyme or oregano, then aged in sealed jars for months. It develops a strong, savoury, cheese-like smell that people often compare to blue cheese. A little goes a long way.
How it’s used: a teaspoon is stirred into couscous, soups and some tagines, often at the start of cooking with the spices, or added at the end for its aroma. Our chicken tajine suggests a teaspoon of smen for a tangy note. Our lamb tagine uses it as an optional replacement for the butter.
Where to buy it: Moroccan and North African grocers, and some online shops selling Middle Eastern food. It keeps for a long time in a cool, dark place, but once opened, refrigerate it and use a clean spoon each time.
Substitute: ghee or clarified butter with a pinch of salt. You’ll get the richness but not the funk. In most recipes, ordinary butter or olive oil works fine.
A simple homemade ras el hanout
This is a warm, all-purpose blend for tagines, couscous and roasted vegetables. Use it as a starting point and change it to your taste: more pepper if you like heat, more cardamom and rose if you like it floral.
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp sweet paprika
- ½ tsp ground cardamom
- ½ tsp ground allspice
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- ¼ tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
- 1 tsp dried edible rosebuds, finely crushed (optional)
Mix everything together in a small bowl and transfer it to a clean, dry jar. It makes about 4 tablespoons. If you’re starting from whole cumin, coriander and peppercorns, toast them in a dry pan over medium heat for 1–2 minutes until fragrant, cool and grind them before measuring. The blend tastes noticeably fresher that way.
Use 1–2 teaspoons in a tagine for four to six people, fried in the oil with the onion before the liquid goes in. Cloves are strong, so don’t be tempted to increase them.
Typical amounts in a tagine
These are the amounts used in our two tagines, as a guide to how much of each spice a Moroccan braise really needs.
| Spice | Chicken tajine (serves 4) | Lamb tagine (serves 6) |
|---|---|---|
| Ground ginger | 1 tsp | 2 tsp |
| Ground turmeric | 1 tsp | 1 tsp |
| Ground cumin | ½ tsp | none |
| Ground cinnamon or stick | ½ tsp ground plus 1 stick | 1 stick |
| Black pepper | ½ tsp | 1 tsp |
| Saffron | about 15 threads | about 25 threads (¼ tsp) |
| Ras el hanout | optional, 2 tsp instead of ginger, cumin and cinnamon | 1 tsp, optional |
Substitutions at a glance
| If you don’t have | Use | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Ras el hanout | Equal parts cumin, ginger and cinnamon, or the blend above | Less floral, simpler |
| Saffron | Leave it out, or add an extra ¼ tsp turmeric | Colour stays, aroma is lost |
| Ground ginger | About 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger per ½ tsp ground | Brighter, less earthy |
| Cumin | Half the amount of caraway, or ground coriander | Caraway is more anise-like |
| Sweet paprika | Any mild unsmoked paprika, or a little Aleppo pepper | Aleppo adds mild heat |
| Cinnamon stick | ½ tsp ground cinnamon | Slightly cloudier sauce |
| Preserved lemon | 1 tsp lemon zest, a squeeze of juice and a pinch of salt | Fresher, less deep |
| Smen | Ghee or clarified butter with a pinch of salt | No aged, cheesy note |
Buying and storing spices
Buy small amounts often, rather than big jars that sit for years. Ground spices lose their aroma faster than whole ones. As a rough guide, ground spices are at their best for about 6 months to a year after opening, and whole spices for a year or two. They don’t become unsafe after that, but they taste of less and less. The best test is your nose: rub a pinch between your fingers, and if the smell is faint, the flavour will be too.
Keep spices in airtight jars in a cool, dark cupboard, away from the cooker, the kettle and sunny windowsills. Heat, light and steam all speed up the loss of flavour. Don’t shake them straight from the jar over a steaming pot, as the moisture gets in and makes them clump.
Moroccan, Middle Eastern and Indian grocers usually sell spices in larger, cheaper bags with a faster turnover, which often means fresher spices. Decant what you need into a small jar and keep the rest sealed in the dark.
Putting the spices to work
The best way to learn these spices is to cook with them. Our Moroccan chicken tajine with apricots is the quicker of our two tagines and a good first recipe: it uses ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, cumin and saffron in modest amounts, with preserved lemon to finish. The lamb tagine with prunes shows the classic ginger, pepper and saffron base with a sweet, cinnamon-glazed topping.
If you’re cooking in a clay pot for the first time, or want to use a slow cooker, read our guide to cooking a tagine. For more recipes as they’re added, browse our Moroccan recipes, and for spice blends and pantry ingredients from other cuisines, see the world pantry guide.