Cilantro: like or dislike?
Welcome to Like or Dislike, where you get to share how you really feel about ingredients from the pantry, ingredients I'm thinking about adding to my pantry, other seasonal foods, and favorite cooking gear. The things you like are sure to find their way to the recipes here on The Perfect Pantry, so do tell.
Cilantro, also called Chinese parsley or coriander, defines the cuisines of so many countries: Mexico, Brazil, India, Thailand and more. Sadly, I'm one of the 15 percent of people to whom cilantro tastes like soap. Apparently it's a genetic thing, a predisposition, not just a turn-up-your-nose thing. My husband loves cilantro, and my friends are equally divided between the likes and the dislikes. Most people are strongly in one camp or the other. How about you?
Cilantro: like or dislike?
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I find this one is all or nothing - people love or hate it.
Me? HAAAAATE.
Hate
I like cilantro, but it was an acquired taste for me. I didn't grow up eating it and the first few times I ate dishes with cilantro, I thought it was too strong. It overwhelmed the recipes, but then I sampled it when it was either properly used or I had finally learned to appreciate it. I found I really liked its bright flavor.
Shirley
My experience was the same as Shirley's. I was tempted to cut & paste her answer
Tony
I love cilantro! I can't make salsa without it, and it adds a nice touch to my Mexican dishes. :)
Hate it, it tastes like soap to me!
LOVE LOVE LOVE
Love! Use it all the time particularly in Asian and Mexican recipes. I grow it and throw in salads too. Luckily, my 3 kids like it too!
LOVE LOVE LOVE it for salsa and in Indian cooking got it growing in the garden and use it a lot
Despise!!! UGH!!!
Adore.
The flavor and the scent.
I sometimes tuck a few leaves into my sandwiches. Heavenly.
I like it, but don't love it. At least it doesn't taste like soap. My mother hated it, so didn't grow up eating it. I like the cilantro that I grow in my garden better than purchased cilantro. Maybe something about a milder flavor if you eat it right after it has been picked?
LOVE IT---
USE IT INSEAD OF PARSLEY---
IMPARTS GREAT FLAVOR--
gordon
You already know I love, love, love cilantro. I do get the genetic thing how some people don't like it but for me it's one of the best-tasting herbs.
Used to hate it. Now I love it.
I love it. My summer salads consist of garden parsley, mint, cilantro, basil, chives, and MAYBE some lettuce! Add a piece of fruit and a little lime or lemon, and salad is made. I sometimes put it in sandwiches, too. And in SW, Mexican, Indian and Moroccan cooking. Unless a guest is a known cilantro hater, of course.
LOVE cilantro -- but I'm a convert. When I first ate it many decades ago at a burrito joint in Marin County, I had no idea what that awful taste in their salsa could be! I'd never had anything like it and my reaction to its assertiveness was totally negative. Not long after that I encountered it again, this time in some raita in an Indian restaurant. That time I thought I might like it, and it didn't take long for me to become a complete cilantro fanatic. Now I'm one of those "There's no such thing as too much cilantro" people. Go figure!
It's the best! I love it!
I seem to be one of the few who are in the middle of the road on this one. I like it, but there is a limit to how much I can handle in one dish. You'll never hear me asking for extra.
Love it. Love it with all my taste buds.
Love it.
LOVE It.
There are few foods I have such an aversion to. I hate cilantro.
Totally love it. LOVE. So many different types of food just are not the same without it -- tex-mex, Mexican, Thai, Indian -- I could go on. And the stems are terrific to include in broth. We eat quite a variety of food so it makes sense that we would appreciate it. It's one of those flavors that makes eating interesting.
I absolutely love it!!! Add to Mexican, Indian food. I even like some in my scrambled eggs.
When I first started hearing about cilantro, it was from sophisticated, avant-garde people who were traveling and eating in Thai restaurants - early 90's? So I approached it reluctantly, but soon adapted and enjoyed the foods where it was used. In retrospect, I was probably eating it all along, since the cilantro eating cuisines are all favorites anyway.
We discovered a recipe for cilantro chutney from an Afghan source, and my husband has made it so many times he just throws it together.
Some people who don't like cilantro can eat the stems - seems (for some) to have the flavor without the 'soap.'
I will eat restaurant food with cilantro as an ingredient, but I never use it a home. Regular parsley all the way!
Back in the 80s, when I had it in salsa unknowingly, I sent it back twice, saying it tasted like Ivory liquid! So many people love cilantro and I can stomach it and even enjoy it if there is just a hint of flavor in some dishes.
We're definitely a split family here, I love it but husband does not like it. I can get away with it in some cooked dishes, but if the flavor is predominant, then forget it. Still like to enjoy MY pesto.
Can not get enough it seems. One entire bunch with each nightly dinner salad. Plant more then my basil this year.
love it -grow it in the garden, I use it fresh rather than dried
Two words (and a link): Cilantro Mousse! http://hedonia.seantimberlake.com/hedonia/2014/05/cilantro-mousse.html
We eat it instead of lettuce on our tacos and use it in salsa and guacamole - I love cilantro - although it dies when I try to grow it - must be my climate
wish I did; like it! I am one of the small percent whose urine has a particular smell after eating asparagus. Have always wondered if there is a co-relation?
Hate it. I'm in the "tastes like soap" camp. Wish I liked it.
Puffy heart cilantro! Puffy heart! <3 <3 <3
I LOVE cilantro. Its a recent thing for me - had not tried it until a few months ago and now I cant stop eating it. Its delicious.
LOVE CILANTRO! and thankfully, all in my family has the genetic makeup to love it as well ;0)