5 Essential Spice Blends You Should Master

In Western cooking, spice blends are generally just a way to add flavour to food without putting too much effort. We typically don't have spice blends specific to our regional foods or dishes. There are exceptions to this rule, such as Chili Powder to Texmex and Cajun Seasoning in Cajun and Creole cooking. In other regions of the world, however, spice blends are essential to achieving signature flavours. Two great examples of this advanced use of spice blends are Garam Masala in Indian cooking and Five Spice in Chinese cuisine.

Buying spice blends can be expensive, and you are never really sure of what you're getting. That's why I recommend, whenever possible, making your own spice blends. It is not a complicated process, and you have total control over the ingredients. If you were to make Five Spice but wanted a little more anise flavour, you would add one or two extra star anise to the recipe.

The five recipes I'm about to give you are, to me, the five most essential spice blends. You can store them all in airtight containers for up to a month, but they are better when made fresh. The flavour of these will blow store-bought spice blends out of the water.

Garam Masala

The first recipe is for Garam Masala, which is an Indian spice blend. Garam Masala can be used on its own or with other spices. You will find it in a lot of different Indian recipes, including butter chicken. Curry powder, as we know, it doesn't exist in Indian cooking. It is a Western invention. Garam Masala is the closest thing there is to an actual Indian curry powder.

Chinese 5 Spice

The second recipe we are going to look at is my favourite. Chinese five-spice is one of those magical combinations. It all just works so well together. This spice blend goes great on chicken, pork, beef, duck, or rabbit. It goes great with orange. It's great in noodles and sauces. I can't say enough how much I love this spice blend.

Barbecue Spice

The next spice blend that we are going to look at is Barbecue Spice. I am actually going to give you two recipes for this. The first, is a very classic Barbecue Spice blend. The second, is my striped down version. Both are good on just about anything.

Chili Powder

Chili powder can be confusing. A lot of people think that it is ground chillies, but it isn't. Ground chillies are called chilli powder. Chili powder, on the other hand, is a spice blend common in South Western US cuisine. I'm not a big fan of chili powder, but it does have it's place, especially, if you are trying to make homemade "taco seasoning" or something like that.

Curry Powder

The final spice blend we are going to look at is often considered Indian but is actually British in origin. That doesn't change how delicious or useful it is. Curry Spice is excellent to have on hand. It goes well with almost anything. You can even add it to mayonnaise with a touch of lemon and make a kick-ass curry mayo.

These five spices blends are to me, the five most essential blends to have in your kitchen. With them, you can make thousands of dishes and recipes. Once you get the hang of making your own spice blends start trying to make your own. You never know what you might come up with.

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