Banlan juice is used to cook curry, which is more fragrant. Or knead glutinous rice balls, and the leaves of Isatis indigotica are squeezed out to make pigments. This plant is common in Malaysia and India and is usually used for cooking. In addition, Banlan can also be used to make Nyonya cakes or Malay cakes.

Vanilla leaves, also known as seven-leaf leaves, or vanilla leaves, are commonly used spices in Southeast Asia, such as satay and coconut milk rice, and are also the source of coffee flavor.

There are two kinds of banlan, one is lobular, with strong fragrance, which is specially used to make snacks and dessert drinks, such as Celepon (glutinous rice flour mixed with some other starch to make a ball, and coconut powder sprinkled on palm sugar pills), kukejongkong (pudding made of starch and coconut juice), Bubur Dawat or Cendol (cooked with starch and with holes in the metal).

Indonesians love eating so much that they have to pick a banlan and cook it in rice. After the meal is ready, the aroma is fragrant and the rice is much softer.

There is also a kind of Banlan with big leaves, which is specially used to wrap zongzi, and the fragrant-leaf chicken in a Thai restaurant. It is wrapped up and fried, and it is really eaten in the mouth, with no fragrance at all.