What Is Star Anise and Why Is it So Popular?

Star anise is subtly sweet with a slight licorice taste. “When you add star anise to a dish or drink, it gives it a whole new depth and flavor,” says Biruk Alemayehu, who owns Addis Nola, an Ethiopian restaurant in New Orleans. “I love that you can use it in so many different applications, whether it’s in a sauce, a dish, a drink, or a dessert. It’s got a great aromatic profile that brings out flavor any time you use it.”

Star anise adds a mild warmth to drinks such as mulled cider and mulled wine, cocktails, some of the mocktails Consumer Reports recently evaluated, and more. It livens up savory meat dishes, and when used sparingly, it doesn’t have to be overpowering.

The flavor of star anise can vary depending on when the spice is harvested and how it’s processed. For example, Ethan Frisch, co-founder of the single-origin spice company Burlap and Barrel, gets his star anise from a farm in Vietnam. He says that the fruits harvested during the summer, which are sun-dried, are larger and sweeter than those harvested in winter. Those fruits, which are dried by smoking, have a more intense and complex flavor.

“Smoked star anise is probably the single most complex flavored ingredient I’ve ever tasted—savory, smoky, sweet, rich, and surprisingly tart, with a slight numbing feeling from the concentrated essential oils,” Frisch says.

Star anise, which can be found as whole pods, ground, or as an extract, is one of the essential ingredients in berbere, an Ethiopian spice blend that Alemayehu uses in many of the dishes at her restaurant. Berbere is commonly a blend of paprika, sea salt, dried chilies, fenugreek, coriander, cumin, and other spices.

Alemayehu says she also uses star anise in doro wot, an Ethiopian dish that she slow-cooks for 24 hours with chicken, caramelized onion, and garlic and tops with hard-boiled eggs. It’s also used in Ethiopian stir-fry dishes, known as tibs, and goes with all kinds of meat or meatlike flavors, including lamb, beef short rib, ribeye, chicken, shrimp, and even mushrooms, she says.

Star anise extract, sold by companies like McCormick (Walmart) and Watkins (Amazon), is an ingredient in some Italian cookies, such as anisette cookies and biscotti. Some sambuca, the clear Italian liqueur, is also made with star anise.

Ground star anise is an ingredient in five-spice powder, a popular seasoning in Asian cuisine, which also includes cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorns, and fennel seeds.

Sophina Uong, chef and owner of the restaurant Mister Mao in New Orleans, says she seasons pork belly with star anise, ginger, and black pepper. The leftover star anise-flavored pork fat is used to make scrambled eggs, blue crab fried rice, roasted baby carrots, and even brussels sprouts. It’s also added to congee (rice porridge).

In addition to its use as a spice, star anise is used in Chinese medicine for its possible antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties and other health benefits, according to a report published in the journal Phytotherapy Research in 2020.

Also known as chakra phool, star anise is a staple in ayurvedic cooking. It’s so popular in Indian cuisine that one of my colleagues said that some Indians say licorice tastes like star anise rather than the other way around.

Star anise flavor can also add a little something different to cold-weather cocktails such as those containing bourbon and ginger, for instance, and you can float a pod atop a drink or nestle one on the rim of a glass for garnish.

“One pod can infuse so much flavor into a simple syrup for cakes or cocktails,” Uong says.

“To be honest, I think one of the reasons for its newfound popularity is its appearance, especially in cocktails. The star shape is really pretty and distinctive,” Frisch says.

But it’s important to know the origin of the star anise you’re buying, so read product descriptions carefully. Avoid star anise from the Japanese anise tree, a different plant species, because it can be toxic. While it’s fragrant, it’s generally used as a decorative plant.

“If you’re new to cooking with star anise, it’s probably best to start with a recipe, because the work of figuring out how much star anise [to use] has been done for you,” says Lan Lam, a cookbook author and senior editor at Cook’s Illustrated. If you’re not the type of person who follows recipes and you prefer to experiment, try adding a pod or two to mulled wine or cider, or grind it up and add it to a spice rub for grilled meat, she says. Frisch says he uses smoked star anise in banana bread.

But it’s potent, so a little goes a long way. If you’re just experimenting, you might not want to go all out and buy this 4-ounce bag of Anthony’s Organic Whole Star Anise (Amazon). Start small, like with this Frontier spice jar (Walmart).

“Perhaps the best way to introduce this incredible warming spice is to drop half of a star anise [pod] into a steeping cup of black tea, or any tea, and it will change your life forever!” Alemayehu says. “You can also try it in broths and soups to see if you enjoy it.”

Having a distinctly American palate as a child, a strong star anise flavor just wasn’t for me. If you’re not a fan of licorice flavor, you find that you’re allergic to star anise, or you simply can’t find it at grocery stores near you, there are some substitutions you can use.

One option, if you’re not allergic to it, is five-spice powder, which contains star anise. Or try anise seeds, which come from a whole different plant but have a similar taste. Fennel seeds also have a licorice flavor. For a sweet and slightly bitter flavor that’s not so much like licorice, you can try using cloves.