Rosemary is a herb with 349 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is 1-hexen-3-one. It pairs most strongly with olive, sharing 235 flavor compounds. Rosemary appears in 3,997 recipes, most commonly in world cuisine.
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), Rosemary's inventory contains 55. Most of the other 294 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 Rosemary's 349 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
105 of 349 are distinctive to rosemary — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in rosemary — 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 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.
Rosemary 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 Rosemary side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
This study developed a green extraction paradigm for rosemary absolute oil (RAO) as a sustainable natural antioxidant to inhibit lipid oxidation in frying oils. RAO was prepared vi... Read abstract →
To address the rapid deterioration of fruit slices, soy protein isolate (SPI) and gelatin (GEL) composite films were optimized for food packaging using rosemary-modified bentonite... Read abstract →
Rosmarinus species are aromatic plants that mainly grow in the Mediterranean region. They are widely used in folk medicine, food, and flavor industries and represent a valuable sou... Read abstract →
This study was performed to study the impacts of rosemary cold-pressed oil (RCPO) for biostimulating health, growth performance, and intestinal bacterial populations of Japanese qu... Read abstract →
The antioxidant and antimicrobial effects on lamb meat of the dietary use of rosemary diterpenes and vitamin E were compared. Thirty fattening lambs were assigned to three diets: (... Read abstract →