Lovage
Lovage is a bold, celery-like herb that brings deep savory flavor to soups, stocks, and more.
In a nutshell
Lovage is a tall perennial herb native to southern Europe with a flavor that tastes like intense celery crossed with parsley and a hint of anise. Every part of the plant — leaves, stems, seeds, and roots — is edible and useful in the kitchen. It’s an old-fashioned garden workhorse that’s making a quiet comeback with adventurous home cooks.
Nutrition
Lovage provides modest amounts of vitamin C and B vitamins, along with trace minerals like calcium, potassium, and magnesium. It contains quercetin and other flavonoids that act as antioxidants, and traditional herbalism has long used it as a digestive aid and mild diuretic. The leaves also supply small amounts of iron and folate, making it a nutritious finishing herb when used generously. Nutrition per 100g via Spoonacular.
Culinary uses & pairings
Lovage’s most classic role is in the stockpot — a few stems or leaves standing in for celery add a concentrated, savory depth to chicken, beef, or vegetable stocks. The hollow stems can be cut into short lengths and used as natural straws for a Bloody Mary, infusing the drink with a subtle celery-like flavor as you sip. Young leaves work beautifully chopped into potato salad, egg salad, or creamy dressings anywhere you’d use celery or lovage’s milder cousin, parsley.
The seeds, which look and taste like celery seed but are earthier, can be ground and used as a seasoning rub for roasted meats or sprinkled onto bread and crackers before baking. Blanched lovage leaves can be puréed into soups or sauces for an herbal, almost umami-rich green note. The root, when peeled and cooked, functions like a root vegetable — roasted or braised alongside carrots and parsnips, it adds a savory backbone to the dish.
Pairs well with
Substitutions
Buying & storage
Fresh lovage is rarely found in supermarkets, so your best bet is a farmers market, specialty herb shop, or your own garden — it grows vigorously and is one of the easiest perennial herbs to establish. When buying fresh, look for bright green leaves with no yellowing or limpness and firm, crisp stems. Dried lovage leaves and seeds are occasionally available at spice shops and online retailers; choose dried product with a strong, celery-like aroma, since faded smell means faded flavor.
Types
- Common Lovage (Levisticum officinale): The standard culinary and medicinal species, growing up to 6 feet tall; this is the variety you’ll find at herb nurseries and the one used in cooking.
- Scots Lovage (Ligusticum scoticum): A shorter coastal species native to northern and western Europe, including Scotland, and the northeastern coasts of North America; milder in flavor and salt-tolerant, traditionally eaten as a potherb in northern regions.
- Chinese Lovage (Ligusticum chuanxiong): Used primarily in traditional Chinese medicine rather than as a culinary herb; the root is the medicinal part and the flavor differs from common lovage.
Cooking with lovage tonight?
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History & origin
Lovage has been cultivated for at least 2,000 years, prized by the ancient Romans who spread it across Europe. The Romans used it medicinally and as a flavoring, including in the spiced wine and sauce recipes recorded by the Roman cookbook author Apicius. Medieval monastery gardens kept lovage as an essential medicinal and culinary plant, and it appears in Charlemagne’s 9th-century capitulary De Villis as a plant to be grown in imperial gardens. By the 17th and 18th centuries it was a common kitchen garden staple in Britain and colonial America, used to contribute celery flavor before modern celery breeding made that vegetable more affordable and accessible. As celery became cheap and plentiful, lovage quietly faded from mainstream cooking, surviving mainly in cottage gardens and old-fashioned recipes.
How it’s made
Lovage is a hardy perennial herb in the carrot family (Apiaceae) that is grown from seed or root division and requires little maintenance once established. It prefers rich, moist, well-drained soil and partial shade, though it tolerates full sun in cooler climates. The plant dies back to the ground each winter and re-emerges vigorously in spring, eventually forming large clumps. Leaves are harvested throughout the growing season, with the youngest spring growth offering the most delicate flavor. The hollow, ribbed stems are harvested in summer, seeds are collected when the flower umbels turn brown in late summer, and the thick taproot can be dug in autumn of the plant’s second or third year. Commercially, lovage seeds are dried and sold whole or ground as a spice, and the plant’s essential oil is extracted for use in the food and fragrance industries.
Good to know
- Lovage was nicknamed ‘Maggi herb’ in Germany and Switzerland because its leaves smell remarkably similar to Maggi seasoning sauce — so much so that the sauce is rumored to contain lovage extract, though its exact formula is a trade secret.
- The hollow stems of lovage have been used as natural drinking straws for centuries, and the practice is still popular today in cocktail culture for Bloody Marys.
- In folk tradition, lovage was associated with love charms and was believed by some to have aphrodisiac properties. The name ‘lovage’ is not actually derived from ‘love,’ however — etymologists trace it through Old French levesche and Late Latin levisticum, ultimately from Ligusticum, a reference to Liguria, the region of northwestern Italy where the plant was commonly found.
- A single lovage plant can grow over 6 feet tall, making it one of the largest culinary herbs a home gardener can grow.
- Lovage essential oil is used as a flavoring in commercial soups, sauces, and seasonings, especially in Europe, even though the fresh herb is rarely seen in grocery stores.
