Orange is a fruit with 471 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan. It pairs most strongly with lemon, sharing 302 flavor compounds. Orange appears in 26,475 recipes, most commonly in world cuisine.
Limonene dominates. Floral linalool and fruity esters add complexity. Valencene provides characteristic orange peel aroma.
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), Orange's inventory contains 76. Most of the other 395 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 64 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 Orange's 471 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
205 of 471 are distinctive to orange — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in orange — 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 13 of Orange's 471 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.
Orange 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 Orange 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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Sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) exhibits limited genetic diversity and high susceptibility to Huanglongbing (HLB). Breeding HLB-tolerant orange-like hybrids is in dire need. However... Read abstract →
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In the present study, we examined whether the cross-modal effect can be obtained between odors and colors, which has been confirmed under olfactory recognizable conditions and also... Read abstract →
Obesity is associated with the changes in gut microbiota. The aim of present study was to investigate the effects of sweet orange essential oil (SOEO) microcapsules on body weight... Read abstract →