hydrodistillation assisted by microwave (hdam) and steam distillation assisted by microwave (sdam) of curcuma longa l. rhizome (cl) and carum carvi fruits (cc) were investigated. the effect of the cryogrinding (cg) showed differences in yields and composition of volatile oils compared with classical grinding. hdam-cg (cl: 1.20%, cc: 1.25%) and sdam-cg (cl: 1.45%, cc: 1.75%) allowed extraction of substantial amounts of volatile oils in less time compared with hdam (cl: 0.6%, cc: 1.00%) and sdam (cl: 0.90%, cc: 1.00%). in addition, the major amounts of volatile oils were globally obtained during the first 5 and 10 minutes of extraction for cl and cc, respectively. a kinetic study of essential oils extraction from cl and cc was quantitatively performed. the composition of the major components and family classes present a significant variation with the extraction time. essential oils extracted by these two methods were quantitatively (yield) and qualitatively [aromatic profile by gas chromatography (gc) and gc-mass spectrometry (gc-ms)] analyzed. there were differences, especially in the major compounds ar-turmerone (hdam: 46.00-57.96%, hdam-cg: 30.85-60.32%) and -turmerone (hdam: 14.43-16.74%, hdam-cg: 10.46-15.77%) for cl, and limonene (hdam: 23.61-56.97%, hdam-cg: 38.04-43.00%) and carvone (hdam: 36.19-64.54%, cc-cg: 53.65-56.31%) for cc.