Parsley vs Cilantro

There’s often confusion between these two wonderful culinary herbs, for both cooks and gardeners. Cilantro and flat-leaf parsley have similar uses and are practically twins of each other, visually, but they do have distinct differences. This article clarifies their individual characteristics, including their growth habits. It’s a good day on the blog when I get to talk about two of my favorite, most useful, fresh herbs: cilantro and parsley. As a cooking educator, I often get questions about when to use which. And in the garden, there are often assumptions that they grow similarly to each other, which is not quite the case. A couple of notes before we get started. In the U.S., we refer to the green leaves of cilantro as cilantro, while in Europe and India they’re called coriander. In the U.S., coriander are the seeds of the cilantro plant. There are two main types of parsley: flat-leaf (or Italian) and curly. Flat-leaf parsley has a strong, herbal, grassy flavor. Curly ...