🇸🇦 Arabicar
بذور الشبت
budhur al-shibt
South Asia, India
Dill Seed
2.5-4%
essential oil yield
of dry fruit
40-60%
carvone share
of the essential oil
120 d
sowing to harvest
summer annual cycle
3500 y
of recorded use
Ebers Papyrus, Egypt
Visual atlas
Profile
Dill seed is not dill weed and refusing to learn the difference is how bad cooks stay bad. The dried fruit of Anethum graveolens, a slim Apiaceae annual, dill seed is flatter, browner and far more assertive than the feathery green fronds most people know. It carries carvone, limonene and alpha-phellandrene in a ratio that leans warm, camphorous, almost citric, with a sharp grassy finish the leaf can only hint at. India is the volume leader, growing the bolder sowa variety, while Egypt, Russia, Bulgaria and the American Pacific Northwest supply the European-type seed that fills every proper pickling brine. Crush it into gravlax cures, float it whole in a Russian rassolnik soup, toast it into Indian dal palak tadka, and the kitchen suddenly smells like late summer in a cucumber patch.
Origin
South Asia, India.
India
South Asia · Central European dill belt (Slovenia/Hungary/India)
Process
01April
Direct sowing
Anethum graveolens is sown shallow where it will grow - the taproot resents transplant. Cool soil, 10 degrees minimum.
02June
First leaf harvest
Young fronds are the fresh herb. In seed crops, growers resist cutting and let the plant bolt straight to flower.
03July
Flowering
Flat yellow umbels, up to 30 cm across, swarm with hoverflies. The plant shifts energy entirely into fruit formation.
04August
Seed set
Flat oval mericarps with pale ridges develop on the umbels. Watch for brown-grey colour and easy shatter - that is ripe.
05Harvest
Cut early
Cut umbels in the morning while slightly damp, hang or windrow. Late cutting drops seed on the ground; the harvest window is two weeks max.
06Your jar
Whole, mortar-crushed
Store whole, dark. Crush in a mortar just before brining pickles, braising cabbage or dusting gravlax - the anise-citrus top is gone within minutes of grinding.
Inside the berry
The molecules that make it taste like Kampot — and not like anything else.
GC-MS of Anethum graveolens fruit: S-(+)-carvone still leads, but the signature is completed by dill ether (alpha-phellandrene epoxide relative), a compound almost exclusive to dill that explains why dill-seed never smells quite like caraway.
2.5-4%
Essential oil
of dry fruit
40-60%
S-(+)-Carvone
shared with caraway
10-15%
Dill ether
near-exclusive marker
20+
Volatile terpenes
identified in European samples
Volatile compound profile
- S-(+)-Carvone48.0%
Warm-anise backbone, the rye-family link.
- D-Limonene28.0%
Citrus top, very high in dill-seed.
- Dill ether12.0%
Green-herbaceous, the pickle fingerprint.
- alpha-Phellandrene5.0%
Pepper-citrus, elegant bridge.
- Myristicin2.0%
Warm, slightly narcotic nutmeg-edge.
- beta-Pinene1.0%
Resinous lift.
Versus other peppers
| Pepper | Carvone | Oil |
|---|---|---|
★ Central European dill-seed Slovenia/Hungary - benchmark | 48% | 3.2% |
Indian dill-seed (sowa) Gujarat - higher limonene, less carvone | 30% | 3.8% |
Russian dill-seed Cooler climate, closer to caraway | 55% | 3.5% |
Caraway (for contrast) Higher carvone, no dill ether | 58% | 5.5% |
Fennel seed (for contrast) Anethole-driven, no carvone at all | 0% | 4.0% |
Cuisines
How the world cooks with it.
3 signature dishes
From Warsaw to Kyiv, dill-seed is the winter voice of dill - when the fresh fronds are long gone, the jars of pickles and sauerkraut carry the flavour through.
- Ogorki kiszonegrade: european-dill-seed
Polish lacto-fermented cucumbers, dill heads plus seed in every jar.
- Kapusta kiszonagrade: european-dill-seed
Sauerkraut with dill seed and juniper, slow-braised with pork.
- Borscht garnishgrade: european-dill-seed
Seed crushed over sour cream at the end of Ukrainian borscht.
Around the world
What it's called, from Phnom Penh to Palermo.
🇨🇳 Chinesezh
蒔蘿籽
shi luo zi
🇬🇧 Englishen
Dill Seed
🇫🇷 Frenchfr
Graines d'aneth
🇩🇪 Germande
Dillsamen
🇮🇳 Hindihi
सोया के बीज
soya ke beej
🇮🇹 Italianit
Semi di aneto
🇯🇵 Japaneseja
ディルシード
diru shiido
🇵🇹 Portuguesept
Semente de endro
🇪🇸 Spanishes
Semilla de eneldo
Seasonality
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Peak Northern harvestEarly harvestStored, available
Pairings
Protein
- Gravlax salmon
Plant
- Pickled cucumbers
- Potato salad
- Braised cabbage
- Carrots
Frequent questions
Same species (Anethum graveolens), different parts. Dill weed is the feathery green leaves, dominated by alpha-phellandrene and dill ether - bright, grassy, delicate. Dill seed is the ripe fruit, dominated by S-(+)-carvone and limonene - warm, anise, robust. They are not interchangeable.