I keep the basic spices on hand. I do have a few for Cajun and Spanish dishes but if a recipe calls for too many exotic spices, I just substitute what I think may work or skip the recipe.
Can you give me some suggestions on where to start, what would be good ones to start picking up when I’m in the grocery store? When I stop at the spice rack in the store I just give up and walk off with nothing because there is so many it’s confusing.
What does every one about spices, it seams every recipe calls for a different spice I don’t have
It depends on what you cook the most, or want to cook, there are different spices for different foods.
I suggest that you find a spice rack that comes with a variety of spices to start with (comes with bottles filled with spices). Then buy others as you want them.
For instance, if you like italian foods mostly, then get an italian spice (you can buy the spices separately, but why, when they are all in one bottle already). Italian spice has mostly oregano as the base.
Do you like hot and spicy foods? If so, you might want cayenne and red pepper, and hot sauce.
As you can see, it really depends on what you eat mostly. If you let us know a specific dish you want to try, or if you like say beef, lamb, chicken or pork, then it gets easier to let you know. Having a spice rack full of the basics should get you through the main dishes.
We like beef and chicken. For beef, we like to use worchesterhire (sic) sauce, beef soup base, and steak rub, and maybe a drop of cayenne or hot sauce.
For chicken, poultry seasoning, maybe cumin, and chicken soup base.
I like to get the already put together rubs, they already have a variety of spices, which makes them tons cheaper. A rub means you rub it on the meat dry, whereas a marinade has a liquid base.
hope this is somewhat helpful, let us know!
dee
As flamingo says, it is really personal preference. My basics are…kosher salt, black ground pepper, a garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, Italian spice, ..I use Paula Deen’s Silly salt which has all the basics in it also, I also like to use Accent and an Adobo Spanish seasoning., cajun seasoning, lemon pepper…. ..I keep vanilla and almond extract on hand,, cinnamon, cocoa powder, nutmeg….I know I am leaving things out but these are things I use a lot.
Finding a filled spice rack is ideal. I bought one at Sam’s years ago that worked well for me.
Mima, great advice. Never heard of Silly Salt, sounds good, is that sold in grocery stores, or just on-line? Though we’ve cut out much of the salt, only use a wee bit.
I forgot about the powders, we got through tons of garlic powder, so much that I buy the pretty big container at Sam’s (and there’s only 2 of us, and we use it on just about everything).
Though I have powdered nutmeg (it also comes whole, but I don’t want to stop to grate it), I like having apple pie seasoning and pumpkin pie seasoning around, they already have the nutmeg mixed in with cinnamom in it, again, allows you to buy one jar instead of many and mixing yourself. (I use it at thanksgiving time, and in apple cobblers, on acorn squash, etc).
I have so many Watkins flavors/extracts it’s unreal, lol. I add vanilla and other flavors even to boxed cake mixes, and flavor the icing with a mix of vanilla/lemon/orange, it cuts the sweetness of icings. And I put coffee extract into choc cakes, yum. Gotta have vanilla and almond extracts, I use butter, coffee and chocolate flavors too. Can you tell I’m a cake decorator? I use extracts to make low or non-fat smoothies. my fav is a banana smoothie, just throw into a blender, some ice, cup of milk (I use skim milk), 1 or 2 packts of artifical sweetener (you can use sugar), 1 small day old banana, a teaspoon of vanilla and banana extract, blend well, it’s so good. If you get creative you can make a chocolate or coffee smoothie, low cal, no fat, talk about good.
Mima, great advice. Never heard of Silly Salt, sounds good, is that sold in grocery stores, or just on-line? Though we’ve cut out much of the salt, only use a wee bit.
I forgot about the powders, we got through tons of garlic powder, so much that I buy the pretty big container at Sam’s (and there’s only 2 of us, and we use it on just about everything). Though I have powdered nutmeg (it also comes whole, but I don’t want to stop to grate it), I like having apple pie seasoning and pumpkin pie seasoning around, they already have the nutmeg mixed in with cinnamom in it, again, allows you to buy one jar instead of many and mixing yourself. (I use it at thanksgiving time, and in apple cobblers, on acorn squash, etc).
I have so many Watkins flavors/extracts it’s unreal, lol. I add vanilla and other flavors even to boxed cake mixes, and flavor the icing with a mix of vanilla/lemon/orange, it cuts the sweetness of icings. And I put coffee extract into choc cakes, yum. Gotta have vanilla and almond extracts, I use butter, coffee and chocolate flavors too. Can you tell I’m a cake decorator? I use extracts to make low or non-fat smoothies. my fav is a banana smoothie, just throw into a blender, some ice, cup of milk (I use skim milk), 1 or 2 packts of artifical sweetener (you can use sugar), 1 small day old banana, a teaspoon of vanilla and banana extract, blend well, it’s so good. If you get creative you can make a
chocolate or coffee smoothie, low cal, no fat, talk about good.
There is only my dh and me and I have that big container of Sam’s garlic powder in my pantry. It lasts forever…oh yum, now I am in the mood for a smoothie. gotta find out if dh ate the last banana…
I have a full spice cupboard and most I don’t use too much until I ran out of Cajun Seasoning Mix ( I use a lot of) & have a few recipes that call for Herbs de Provence. So I went on-line & gathered different recipes for mixing your own ( comparing & contrasting different ones). I got to use a lot of spices that were just sitting in my cupboard for these two spice mixes. Since they are rather expensive & I hate wasting food, I was elated to be able to do this. Also, Henry’s Marketplace/Farmers Market has herbs & spices in bulk jars where you just buy what you need. Price is per pound but if I need just a little of on “off the wall” spice or herb, I just buy what I need and end up spending 40 cents or so. It’s great if your trying a new recipe & don’t want to be “stuck” with an $4 jar of a spice I’ll most likely never use again!
