Liquorice root vs Star anise
The short answer
Constantly swapped because both taste of anise, and the swap misses what liquorice is for. Star anise gets its character from anethole and brings no sweetness; liquorice gets its from glycyrrhizin, a compound many times sweeter than sugar, so the root sweetens a dish while adding almost no sugar — which nothing else in this catalogue does. In a Chinese master stock the two appear together doing separate jobs, the star anise supplying aroma and the liquorice rounding the salt, so substituting either loses the job the missing one was doing. Liquorice is also slow: the sweetness arrives late and lingers long after other flavours have cleared, which is why it is dosed by simmering a stick and lifting it out.
Side by side
| Liquorice root | Star anise | |
|---|---|---|
| Botanical identity | Glycyrrhiza glabra L., Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch. ex DC. | Illicium verum Hook.f. |
| Part used | root | fruit |
| Origin | West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean for G. glabra, with G. uralensis native to northern China and Mongolia. Cultivation and wild collection extend across a broad temperate band from Spain to China. | Southern China and the adjoining north of Vietnam, where the tree is native and where cultivation remains concentrated. |
| Flavour notes | sweet, earthy, anise-adjacent, lingering | liquorice, sweet, warm, resinous, woody |
| Heat | Not established | Scoville does not apply |
| Flavour | Intensely and persistently sweet, with an earthy, slightly bitter woodiness behind it and a cooling finish that lingers well after other flavours have gone. The sweetness arrives slowly and outlasts everything, which is the property that makes it useful and also the reason it is easy to overuse. | Sweet, warm and strongly anise-flavoured, with a light bitterness from the woody carpel and a lingering finish. It is a big, slow spice: it does not fade during long cooking, which is exactly what suits it to braises and stocks and exactly what makes it overwhelming in a quick dish. |
| Aroma | Sweet, earthy and faintly anise-like, with a woody base. Much quieter than star anise and quite different in character — the anise note is a suggestion rather than the dominant impression. | Powerfully sweet and liquorice-like, with a warm resinous depth and a faint camphorous edge behind it. It carries a long way and clings to a grinder. |
Can you swap them?
Substitution is directional: the answer is often different in each direction, and both are recorded.
Star anise
PoorRecorded because it is the swap people reach for and it substitutes aroma for function. Star anise shares the anise character and brings none of the sweetness, and sweetness is what liquorice is in the pot to provide — glycyrrhizin sweetens without sugar, which nothing else in this dataset does. A master stock made with star anise alone still smells right and tastes flatter and saltier, because the rounding element has gone.
| Flavour | Aroma | Colour | Heat |
|---|---|---|---|
| partial | partial | different | n/a |
Works for
- Dishes using liquorice purely for its anise aroma, which are few
- Kitchens with no access to the root at all
Does not work for
- Chinese master stocks and red-braises, where the sweetening is the job
- Infusions and drinks built on liquorice, where the sweetness is the whole product
- Any dish where sugar cannot simply be added instead
Cuisine: Both belong to the same Chinese braising register, so the dish stays in place and loses a dimension.
Where the root is unavailable and the dish needs it, adding a little sugar alongside star anise gets closer than star anise alone — though it misses the slow arrival and long finish that make liquorice distinctive.
Which should you buy?
Liquorice root
Buy the root, in sticks or chips. The reason is control rather than freshness, which makes this different from most whole-versus-ground cases here: liquorice keeps its sweetness for years in either form, but the sweetness is slow to arrive and keeps building, so the ability to taste a simmering stock and lift the piece out is worth more than convenience. Ground root cannot be retrieved, mills poorly because the material is fibrous, and carries more of the woody bitterness because nothing is left behind. The powder earns a place in a dry rub or a dough where a stick cannot go, and almost nowhere else.
Star anise
Buy whole, and here the case is stronger than for most spices. Whole stars keep better, are used whole in nearly every traditional preparation, are removable from a dish, and — uniquely among common spices — are the only form in which the species can be visually assessed at all. Ground star anise gives up all four advantages for a convenience the spice rarely requires.
Full detail on liquorice root and star anise, including evidence grades and sources for every claim above.