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Pairing

Leek + Apple

A good pairing. Cooks put them together in 20 recipes, and they share 232 flavor molecules: the top 21% of all ingredient pairs.

Smell alikemoderate
Cooked together20 recipes
Ranktop 21% of pairs
Try them in the pairing tool Leek Apple
29leek only 232shared 290apple only Leek · 261 Apple · 522
Circle size = number of flavor molecules on record. Overlap = molecules they share.

Do leek and apple go together?

Yes. 20 recipes in our collection combine them, and they share 232 flavor molecules. That places them in the top 21% of every ingredient pair we score.

Why they work

Almost everything leek carries, apple has too: 232 of leek's 261 flavor molecules also occur in apple. Among the shared key aromas are ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity) and 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

What each one brings

leek

The sulfurous side. Sulfurous notes make up 8% of its labelled aroma molecules, against 2% for apple. It carries 29 molecules apple doesn't have.

apple

The fruit. Fruity notes make up 27% of its labelled aroma molecules, against 11% for leek. It carries 290 molecules leek doesn't have.

Add a third ingredient

  • Parsnip: the best fit for both, top 1% of pairs with leek, top 9% with apple.
  • Turnip: top 1% of pairs with leek, top 14% with apple.
  • Sorrel: top 1% of pairs with leek, top 19% with apple.
  • Beetroot: top 1% of pairs with leek, top 12% with apple.

Ranked by the average of its two pairing scores. Only foods used in at least 100 recipes are suggested.

Recipes with leek and apple

We have no browsable recipe that lists both leek and apple.

Can you swap one for the other?

Only partly. Almost all of leek's flavor molecules (232 of 261) are also found in apple, but apple has 290 that leek lacks. Leek gives you part of apple's character without most of its fruit. This compares flavor only; texture, moisture and the job each does in a dish matter too.

All 232 shared molecules

See every shared molecule grouped by chemical class, with key aromas marked, plus the 29 only in leek and the 290 only in apple.

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Leek and apple questions

Do leek and apple go together?

A good pairing. Cooks put them together in 20 recipes, and they share 232 flavor molecules: the top 21% of all ingredient pairs.

Why do leek and apple taste good together?

Almost everything leek carries, apple has too: 232 of leek's 261 flavor molecules also occur in apple. Among the shared key aromas are ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity) and 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

What goes with leek and apple?

Parsnip is the best third ingredient: top 1% of pairs with leek and top 9% with apple. Turnip and sorrel also fit both.

Can I use apple instead of leek?

Only partly. Almost all of leek's flavor molecules (232 of 261) are also found in apple, but apple has 290 that leek lacks. Leek gives you part of apple's character without most of its fruit. This compares flavor only; texture, moisture and the job each does in a dish matter too.

Compare other ingredients

1
2

Two ingredients gives the full side-by-side breakdown; add a third to see a similarity matrix across all of them (up to 6).

Ranks compare this pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. Molecule counts are what the studies and databases we aggregate have reported for each ingredient: a measure of coverage, not a full census. How we score pairs

Cite this analysis
Plain text
Compound Kitchen (2026). Compound similarity analysis: Leek vs Apple. https://compkitchen.com/compare/leek-vs-apple. Accessed 2026-11-05.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compare_compound_similarity_analysis_leek_vs_apple_2026,
  title  = {Compound similarity analysis: Leek vs Apple},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compare/leek-vs-apple},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-05}
}

Methodology DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19719459 · CC BY 4.0 · Citations are a request, not a requirement.