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Pairing

Barley + Raisin

A good pairing. Cooks put them together in 57 recipes, and they share 115 flavor molecules: the top 11% of all ingredient pairs.

Smell alikemoderate
Cooked together57 recipes
Ranktop 11% of pairs
Try them in the pairing tool Barley Raisin
238barley only 115shared 14raisin only Barley · 353 Raisin · 129
Circle size = number of flavor molecules on record. Overlap = molecules they share.

Do barley and raisin go together?

Yes. 57 recipes in our collection combine them, and they share 115 flavor molecules. That places them in the top 11% of every ingredient pair we score.

Why they work

Almost everything raisin carries, barley has too: 115 of raisin's 129 flavor molecules also occur in barley. Among the shared key aromas are beta-damascenone (apple, rose) and decanal (soap, orange peel).

What each one brings

barley

The roast. Roasted notes make up 11% of its labelled aroma molecules, against 6% for raisin. It carries 238 molecules raisin doesn't have.

raisin

Much the same character. It carries 14 molecules barley doesn't have.

Add a third ingredient

  • Almond: the best fit for both, top 5% of pairs with barley, top 2% with raisin.
  • Cinnamon: top 9% of pairs with barley, top 1% with raisin.
  • Flour: top 13% of pairs with barley, top 1% with raisin.
  • Chestnut: top 6% of pairs with barley, top 6% with raisin.

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

Recipes with barley and raisin

We have no browsable recipe that lists both barley and raisin.

Can you swap one for the other?

Only partly. Almost all of raisin's flavor molecules (115 of 129) are also found in barley, but barley has 238 that raisin lacks. Raisin gives you part of barley's character without most of its roast. This compares flavor only; texture, moisture and the job each does in a dish matter too.

All 115 shared molecules

See every shared molecule grouped by chemical class, with key aromas marked, plus the 238 only in barley and the 14 only in raisin.

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Barley and raisin questions

Do barley and raisin go together?

A good pairing. Cooks put them together in 57 recipes, and they share 115 flavor molecules: the top 11% of all ingredient pairs.

Why do barley and raisin taste good together?

Almost everything raisin carries, barley has too: 115 of raisin's 129 flavor molecules also occur in barley. Among the shared key aromas are beta-damascenone (apple, rose) and decanal (soap, orange peel).

What goes with barley and raisin?

Almond is the best third ingredient: top 5% of pairs with barley and top 2% with raisin. Cinnamon and flour also fit both.

Can I use raisin instead of barley?

Only partly. Almost all of raisin's flavor molecules (115 of 129) are also found in barley, but barley has 238 that raisin lacks. Raisin gives you part of barley's character without most of its roast. This compares flavor only; texture, moisture and the job each does in a dish matter too.

Compare other ingredients

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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: Barley vs Raisin. https://compkitchen.com/compare/barley-vs-raisin. Accessed 2026-11-03.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compare_compound_similarity_analysis_barley_vs_raisin_2026,
  title  = {Compound similarity analysis: Barley vs Raisin},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compare/barley-vs-raisin},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-03}
}

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