No, lovage is not the same as celery. The two plants look alike. They taste alike too. But the lovage vs celery split comes down to one fact. They are different species that happen to be close kin. Lovage looks like celery the way a wild plant looks like its tame cousin. You can spot the family link at a glance. Yet the two are not the same in the garden or on the plate.
You may ask is lovage celery the first time you see the plant. The reason is simple. The leaves look almost the same. Both have toothed, glossy green leaflets. Both give off a sharp green scent that says celery the moment you crush one in your hand. But lovage is its own herb. It has its own name and its own growth habit. And its flavor hits far harder than any celery stalk you have tasted. That one trait sets the whole plant apart for you.
Here is the botany in plain terms. Both plants sit in the Apiaceae family, the carrot and parsley group that also holds dill, fennel, and parsnip. The herb you call lovage goes by the plant name Levisticum officinale in seed books. It is a hardy perennial. It comes back year after year. A mature plant can reach 6 feet tall. Celery is a separate plant. Growers raise it as a biennial vegetable for its thick, watery stalks. So the lovage vs celery line is a species line, not a nickname. Same family, different plants, different jobs in your kitchen.
The biggest split shows up in the stems. Celery puts its energy into wide, fleshy stalks. You snap those off and eat them raw or cook them down. Lovage does not work that way. Its stems stay thin and hollow. They look more like a tall herb stalk than a vegetable. So you treat lovage as a herb. You pick the leaves and seeds for flavor. You do not harvest it for crunchy stalks the way you would celery. The plant simply does not grow the right parts for that.
Flavor is where the gap opens wide. Lovage tastes like celery turned up to full volume. You get a deeper, almost peppery edge. Many cooks taste a mix of celery and parsley when you crush a leaf. A small handful can carry a whole pot of your soup. So lovage makes a strong lovage celery substitute. But it only works if you respect how concentrated it is. You should treat it like a seasoning, not a side dish.
That brings up the one rule that saves most cooks from a ruined dish. When you swap lovage in for celery, use a fraction of the amount. A few leaves stand in for a whole stalk. So start small and build up. You can always add more later. But you cannot pull that bold flavor back out once a dish tastes like a celery factory.
- Start: Use one or two lovage leaves where a recipe calls for a single stalk of celery.
- Taste: Cook for a few minutes, then taste before you add any more.
- Adjust: Add one extra leaf at a time until the celery note feels right.
- Save the hollow stems for stocks, where their strong flavor has room to mellow.
So the short answer stays simple. Lovage and celery are cousins in one plant group, not twins. One is a tall perennial herb. You grow it for its punchy leaves. The other is a stalk vegetable. You grow it for the crunch. Plant lovage once in a sunny back corner. It will feed you every spring for years with no replanting. Keep a light hand with it. Then you get all the celery flavor you want from a plant that does the work for you.
Read the full article: Lovage Plant: A Complete Growing Guide
