Buying Spices.

chrislee765

Dear fellow MSE users,

I want to build a spice collection so i can start cooking my own curries from scratch. Im not worried about jars or anything because they wont be on show.
I dont have a local 'ethnic grocer' and wondered if anyone can recommend where i can buy spices from that are good quality and cheap. Ive seen a few online retailers but is there any anyone can recommend?

Thanks :T

Jolaaled

Round my way, health food shops see spices by weight from large jars..it does work out a bit cheaper than the outrageous Schwarz-type jars.

My cheapest source is when i go to France ( which, luckily is just down the road from me!)..their spices are much cheaper in the supermarkets..even at CitiEurope, and you get loads that seem to be far better flavour too.

newleaf

chrislee765 wrote:

I dont have a local 'ethnic grocer'

Really? Where on earth do you live? It's a shame, because they are a goldmine for the money conscious shopper. A health food shop is probably your next best bet, and our Tesco has a good stock of spices packed for the Rajah brand, but that is aiming to cater for the local ethnic community.

helen81_2

Ive bought the odd jar of curry and chilli powder from Lydls and it tastes lovely

lady_fuschia

Julian Graves is good for most things, although the bags they come in are a bit pants, so you may want to transfer the to jars (I use empty pasta sauce jars) they often have 2 for 1 offers. Mixed green herbs I get from Holland and Barratt as they do a huge bag for 99p and they're very good quality. If you want to buy in serious bulk it might be worth planning a trip to the nearest town that does have an "ethnic" store (I wish there was a better word for that, it always sounds a bit pretentious to me!) and stock up. Your local supermarket might also have an Indian food section that sells bags of spices far cheaper than those in the spice section- Somerfield. Kwik save and some Tescos (usually those in areas with a large Asian population) definetely do this, and there may be others too.

SusanCarter

You could try a local market. I buy virtually all of my herbs and spices from a man in the market in Durham.

puffinmuffin

Do you have local Curry restaurant that you like, maybe you could ask them where they source their spices.

madauri

The Range has got large containers of assorted spices for quite a good price. And Lidl has cheap ones and they're good quality.

lady_fuschia

Just to let you know, my local Tesco has just started stocking a really good range of curry spices in large jars. They've also started doing really good value Indian cooking ingredients such as chapatti flour- it could be worth a look.

N9eav

Health food shops and markets have the cheapest spices. Schwartz and supermarkets are rip offs.

Save up some small jars and make your own labels.....