Green Botanica · Plant Guide
Ocimum × africanum
Maeng lak · เมล็ดแมงลัก · hairy basil · sabja
Tiny and black when dry, basil seeds wrap themselves in a soft, clear gel within minutes of meeting water. In Thailand they come from maeng lak, a lemon-scented basil, and are stirred into iced drinks and coconut-milk desserts, while its leaves go into soups. Almost tasteless, the seeds add texture rather than flavour.
Meet the plant
Maeng lak is a short-lived annual basil of the mint family, Lamiaceae, growing 30–80 cm tall. Its leaves are light green, elliptic and softly hairy, with a lemon-and-basil scent that is milder than Thai basil. Small white, two-lipped flowers grow in rings along upright spikes.
Each flower leaves behind a little cup, the calyx, holding tiny black nutlets: the seeds. Botanically, maeng lak is a natural hybrid of two basils, Ocimum americanum and sweet basil, O. basilicum, which is why it appears under several Latin names.
Soaked seeds in sweet water or syrup over ice, a classic Thai drink.
Thai desserts serve the soaked seeds in sweetened coconut milk.
In India, Pakistan and Iran the seeds float in rose-scented falooda and sweet sharbat drinks.
Ready-made basil seed drinks are now common in Asian grocery shops worldwide.
The leaves flavour kaeng liang, a peppery Thai vegetable soup, and are served with khanom chin noodles.
Leaves go in at the very end of kaeng no mai, a bamboo-shoot soup.
The story
Basil seeds have no grand history in old herbals. Their story is told in drinks and desserts, from Persia and India to Thailand.
A cold Persian dessert, faloodeh, is said to have travelled to India, where under the Mughals it grew into falooda: rose syrup, fine noodles, milk and soaked basil seeds.
In Thailand the seeds are still sold at markets and stirred into sweet drinks. Bottled basil seed drinks have travelled with Asian grocery shops around the world.
The seed gel is studied as a natural thickener and emulsifier. Thai food researchers have tested maeng lak seed fibre in fruit drinks.
In Thailand, maeng lak is a plant of two kitchens: the leaves are a savoury herb for soups and noodles, the seeds a sweet for hot afternoons. In Isan the same plant is called i tu.
In India and Pakistan the seeds, usually from sweet basil, are known as sabja or tukmaria and go into falooda, lemonade and sharbat. In Iran they are stirred into sweet sharbat drinks.
Kitchen
Nutritional value
Basil seeds are small but dense: by weight they are mostly carbohydrate and fibre, with a good share of fat and protein. Published analyses differ widely, because they cover different basils, growing areas and methods. The table shows the ranges collected in a 2021 review, per 100 g of dry seeds and per level teaspoon of about 4 g.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g dry seeds | Per teaspoon (about 4 g) | % RI* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carbohydrate | 44–64 g | 1.8–2.6 g | 1% |
| Fibre | 7–26 g | 0.3–1.0 g | — |
| Fat | 10–33 g | 0.4–1.3 g | 1–2% |
| Protein | 11–23 g | 0.5–0.9 g | 1–2% |
A teaspoon of basil seeds adds a little fibre, fat and protein to a drink or dessert. Its real value in the kitchen is texture: a soft gel with a light crunch and almost no taste of its own. It complements a varied diet but does not replace a balanced one.
Nutritional value
What makes basil seeds special is their coat. It is made of long, water-loving sugar chains that unfold into gel. Most studies of this gel use sweet basil seeds; maeng lak seeds form the same kind of gel.
One of the two main parts of the seed gel, a water-loving polysaccharide that also thickens konjac jelly.
The other main part of the gel. Together the gel makes up around a fifth of the seed’s weight.
The gel and the seed coat together make basil seeds rich in fibre for their weight.
About 11–23 g per 100 g, in the small, hard kernel inside the gel.
An omega-3 fatty acid, often the largest single fatty acid in the seed oil.
The lemon scent of lemon-scented basils comes largely from citral, the compound that also scents lemongrass.
Gel begins to form within seconds of the seed touching water.
About 90 % of the gel forms within 20 minutes. With its gel, a seed holds about four times more water than without it.
The gel keeps water close for germination and glues the seed to the ground: moist seeds stayed stuck even to a vertical surface for 24 hours.
What basil seeds offer
A simple Thai sweet for generations, basil seeds now turn up in drinks and breakfast bowls far beyond Asia.
Only a handful of studies have tested basil seeds in people. Two examples:
Int J Preventive Medicine · 2016
Human study · randomisedIn Iran, 120 adults with fatty liver disease took 10 g of basil seeds, 10 g of psyllium, a mix of both or nothing extra, daily for 12 weeks. Weight and BMI fell within the groups, but not differently from the control group; the authors concluded that the seeds did not change body measurements.
Cureus · 2024
Human study · observationalIn India, 60 healthy adults either ate 10 g of soaked basil seeds a day or did endurance exercise for 8 weeks. In the seed group, blood levels of the inflammation markers IL-6 and TNF-α and of the hormone leptin fell. There was no group without either.
Educational product information. Not medical advice. Always soak basil seeds fully before eating. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding or taking medication, consult your doctor before using a new botanical product.
