The Best Substitute for Allspice

If you aren’t familiar with allspice yet, you probably should be: Its warm, complex flavor profile and subtle heat make it a delicious addition to some of the dishes you cook on the regular—chili, roast chicken and simple vegetable sides, to name a few. Not to mention its starring role in festive treats like pumpkin pie and gingerbread cookies. Basically, this is the unsung hero of the spice rack. But what to do when you’re working from a recipe that requires a sprinkling of the stuff and you don’t have any on hand? Well, if you’re anything like us then you have pretty much every other spice in your collection so you can breathe a sigh of relief. Your spice hoarding has served you well: Chances are, you have a great substitute for allspice in your kitchen. 

It might not be the most popular spice when it comes to American cooking, but in other parts of the world, allspice is indispensable (think: Jamaican jerk chicken or a fragrant curry from the Middle East). But what is it exactly? Allspice is not—as its name might suggest—just a blend of a bunch of different spices. It’s actually a fragrant berry from the allspice tree that is used both whole and ground to flavor food. As for the flavor it imparts, the American Spice Trade Association’s (ASTA) Concise Guide to Spices explains that while allspice boasts a “dominant clove flavor note,” it is distinct from clove itself in that allspice has a “more mellow, sweet, rounded flavor.” According to the spice experts, the most prevalent description of allspice today is that it is “a combination of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.”

Allspice is definitely its own thing—a berry that comes from its own tree and should not be confused for any other spice. That said since it is often described as a combination of other well-known spices (see earlier note), it should come as no surprise that the best substitute for ground allspice is a blend of these component flavor notes. For a very close match, try the ASTA formula for making your own substitute, which can be used 1:1 in any recipe that calls for ground allspice.

• 3 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ plus ⅛ tsp ground clove
• 1 ¼ tsp ground nutmeg

Mix these fragrant spices together and that’s it. Easy-peasy. 

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