Lemon is a citrus fruit with 364 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is p-methylacetophenone. It pairs most strongly with orange, sharing 302 flavor compounds. Lemon appears in 101,060 recipes, most commonly in world cuisine.
Primarily citral and geranial. Woody terpenes supplement with citrusy pinene and camphoraceous piney scent. Some floral, green, fruity and spicy notes.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Lemon's inventory contains 55. Most of the other 309 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 43 more — showing top 12 by class and threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Lemon's 364 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
120 of 364 are distinctive to lemon — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in lemon — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by median concentration across published studies. Only 33 of Lemon's 364 compounds have a measured concentration in the literature — the rest are confirmed present but not yet quantified. Bars are log-scaled.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Lemon and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Lemon side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
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This study focussed on the formulation, characterisation of lemon myrtle (LM) and anise myrtle (AM) essential oil (EO) in water nanoemulsion and their antibacterial activity. The r... Read abstract →
Citrus genus is the most important fruit tree crop in the world and lemon is the third most important Citrus species. Several studies highlighted lemon as an important health-promo... Read abstract →
