Looking for the ingredients that make food taste different around the world.

Every cuisine, while sharing many common elements with others, uses a handful of ingredients that combine for unique flavors.

With Chinese food, you often see soy sauce, green onion, and sesame oil. With Italian food, you often see garlic, parmesan cheese, and olive oil. Vietnamese food uses fish sauce. Korean food uses chili paste.

As I venture into new cooking territories, it’s been fun to discover the flavor bombs from various cuisines. A lot of “where have you been all of my life” moments.

So what are the ingredients that make each cuisine?



I looked into a Yummly ingredients dataset. It contains ingredient lists for a bit under 40,000 recipes from 20 cuisines. This amounted to 6,714 ingredients. Here are the five most used ingredients in each cuisine:

Most Used Ingredients Brazilian British Cajun Creole Chinese Filipino salt salt salt soy sauce salt onions all−purpose flour onions sesame oil garlic olive oil butter garlic salt onions lime milk green bell pepper corn starch water water eggs butter sugar soy sauce 0% 25% 50% Indian French Greek Irish Italian salt salt salt salt salt sugar olive oil onions all−purpose flour olive oil all−purpose flour dried oregano garam masala butter garlic cloves unsalted butter garlic cloves water onions grated parmesan olive oil feta cheese crumbles ground turmeric potatoes garlic Korean Jamaican Japanese Mexican Moroccan salt soy sauce soy sauce salt salt onions salt sesame oil onions olive oil water mirin garlic ground cumin ground cumin garlic sugar green onions garlic onions ground allspice water sugar olive oil garlic cloves Spanish Russian Southern US Thai Vietnamese salt salt salt fish sauce fish sauce sugar butter olive oil garlic sugar onions all−purpose flour garlic cloves salt salt all−purpose flour sugar extra−virgin olive oil coconut milk garlic sour cream large eggs onions vegetable oil water Brazilian British Cajun Creole salt salt salt onions all−purpose flour onions olive oil butter garlic lime milk green bell pepper water eggs butter 0% 25% 50% French Chinese Filipino soy sauce salt salt sesame oil garlic sugar all−purpose flour salt onions unsalted butter corn starch water sugar soy sauce olive oil Indian Greek Irish salt salt salt olive oil onions all−purpose flour dried oregano garam masala butter garlic cloves water onions feta crumbles ground turmeric potatoes Jamaican Japanese Italian salt soy sauce salt onions salt olive oil water mirin garlic cloves garlic sugar grated parmesan ground allspice water garlic Korean Mexican Moroccan soy sauce salt salt sesame oil onions olive oil garlic ground cumin ground cumin green onions garlic onions sugar olive oil garlic cloves Spanish Russian Southern US salt salt salt sugar butter olive oil onions all−purpose flour garlic cloves all−purpose flour sugar e.v. olive oil sour cream large eggs onions Thai Vietnamese fish sauce fish sauce garlic sugar salt salt coconut milk garlic vegetable oil water

It’s somewhat interesting. Soy sauce and fish sauce take the top spots in the Asian cuisines, whereas salt is the main seasoning ingredient elsewhere. You see oregano in Greek and garam masala in Indian.

However, overall, this view covers more general ingredients. Salt is used in a lot of cuisines. So is soy sauce. What ingredients are more specific to certain cuisines?

I calculated the relative usage of each ingredient for each cuisine. More specifically, I calculated the percentage of recipes that used an ingredient in a cuisine and divided it by the usage among all other cuisines. For example, in the results below, sweetened condensed milk showed about 22 times the usage in Brazilian recipes than the other cuisines.

Most Cuisine-Specific Ingredients Brazilian British Cajun Creole Chinese Filipino sw. cond. milk milk andouille sausage hoisin sauce cooking oil coconut milk heavy cream creole seasoning oyster sauce bay leaves lime baking powder cajun seasoning sesame oil oil tomatoes unsalted butter celery ribs corn starch fish sauce onions flour celery peanut oil soy sauce 0 20 0 4 0 120 0 40 0 12 Indian French Greek Irish Italian shallots feta cheese garam masala baking soda grated parmesan unsalted butter feta cheese crumbles ground turmeric potatoes fresh basil large eggs cucumber cumin seed buttermilk e.v. olive oil all−purpose flour dried oregano tumeric baking powder olive oil butter fresh lemon juice green chilies milk grnd. black pepper 0 3 0 80 0 150 0 8 0 20 Korean Jamaican Japanese Mexican Moroccan allspice sake Gochujang base corn tortillas couscous ground allspice mirin kimchi salsa chickpeas thyme rice vinegar toasted sesame seeds flour tortillas ground ginger fresh thyme soy sauce sesame seeds black beans ground cinnamon dried thyme scallions sesame oil avocado ground coriander 0 50 0 120 0 1,000 0 250 0 140 Spanish Russian Southern US Thai Vietnamese beets buttermilk extra−virgin olive oil lemongrass fish sauce fresh dill baking soda dry white wine fish sauce beansprouts sour cream baking powder red bell pepper coconut milk lemongrass potatoes vanilla extract fresh parsley peanuts cucumber flour milk tomatoes lime juice rice vinegar 0 80 0 20 0 4 0 40 0 20 Brazilian British Cajun Creole sw. cond. milk milk andouille ssg. coconut milk heavy cream creole sng. lime baking powder cajun sng. tomatoes unsalted butter celery ribs onions flour celery 0 20 0 4 0 120 French Chinese Filipino shallots hoisin sauce cooking oil unsalted butter oyster sauce bay leaves large eggs sesame oil oil all−purpose flr. corn starch fish sauce butter peanut oil soy sauce 0 3 0 40 0 12 Indian Greek Irish feta cheese garam masala baking soda feta crumbles ground turmeric potatoes cucumber cumin seed buttermilk dried oregano tumeric baking powder fresh lemon juice green chilies milk 0 80 0 150 0 8 Italian Jamaican Japanese allspice sake grated parmesan ground allspice mirin fresh basil thyme rice vinegar e.v. olive oil fresh thyme soy sauce olive oil dried thyme scallions grnd. black pepper 0 50 0 120 0 20 Korean Mexican Moroccan Gochujang base corn tortillas couscous kimchi salsa chickpeas tstd. sesame sds. flour tortillas ground ginger sesame seeds black beans grnd. cinnamon sesame oil avocado grnd. coriander 0 1,000 0 250 0 140 Russian Southern US Spanish beets buttermilk e.v. olive oil fresh dill baking soda dry white wine sour cream baking powder red bell pepper potatoes vanilla extract fresh parsley flour milk tomatoes 0 80 0 20 0 4 Thai Vietnamese lemongrass fish sauce fish sauce beansprouts coconut milk lemongrass peanuts cucumber lime juice rice vinegar 0 40 0 20

*Only ingredients that were in at least 10% of available recipes are shown.





Now we’re getting somewhere. The French recipes use relatively more shallots and butter; the Greek recipes use more feta cheese; the Moroccan recipes use more couscous.

Combine the two measurements, and you can quickly spot the ingredients that are both common and unique.

All in all, the data confirms my experiences with certain cuisines. For the ones I haven’t tried much of yet, it’s nice to see what I might be getting into later on. Filipino pork belly, here I come.

Notes