Essential herbs and spices

penrhyn

Quick look reveals:-

Black Peppercorns, Chilli Powder, Chilli Flakes, Cinnamon Sticks, Cinnamon Powder, Cardamom Pods, Ground Ginger, Chinese Five Spice, Star Anise, Whole Cloves, Nutmeg, Anglesey Sea Salt.

Lizbetty

I use ground cumin, ground and also dried coriander, ground ginger, mixed herbs (though I have started buying dried basil and dried oregano separately now), dried chives (fab for scrambled eggs and omelettes, in case we've run out of the supply in the garden), ground cinnamon, mild chilli powder, smoked paprika, dried garlic granules, garam marsala and dried parsley. We have others but those are the ones we use the most.

We don't have them in any organised fashion, ours are stuffed in plastic boxes in the cupboard in different sized bottles! Organisation is something that eludes me constantly.

We get them quite cheaply from Asda and Aldi, mainly. Though Sainsburys parsley does seem nicer.

Kilty_2

Lucyeff wrote: »

Organisation is something that eludes me constantly.

- me too normally, I'm going to make an effort though.

Lizbetty

The problems with herbs and spices is that they all come in different sized packets and jars, don't they? I'd probably get the posh bottles to decant them into and end up with half bottles in the cupboard that I'd used to top up the posh ones and get so upset and bewildered by it all eventually that I'd end up ordering take aways until 2018 when all the lot had gone out of date anyway!

But that's just me. It's a bit crap being me, mostly, and not recommended.

Butterfly_Brain

The things that I use the most are:

1. Mixed Herbs
2. Cumin
3. Bay leaves
4. basil
5. Coriander
6. Mustard seeds
7. 5 spice
8. crushed chillies
9. cayenne pepper
10. Paprika
11. All purpose seasoning
12. turmeric
13. nutmeg
14. cinnamon
15. caraway seeds
16. mixed spice
17. cloves
18. ginger

I also keep a vanilla pod or two, garlic salt, tarragon, oregano and pickling spice

MaggieBaking

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

The things that I use the most are:

1. Mixed Herbs
2. Cumin
3. Bay leaves
4. basil
5. Coriander
6. Mustard seeds
7. 5 spice
8. crushed chillies
9. cayenne pepper
10. Paprika
11. All purpose seasoning
12. turmeric
13. nutmeg
14. cinnamon
15. caraway seeds
16. mixed spice
17. cloves
18. ginger

I also keep a vanilla pod or two, garlic salt, tarragon, oregano and pickling spice

That's pretty much my list. My top 5 would be:

Cumin, paprika, mixed herbs, chilli flakes and bay leaves although I keep much more than that. It wont fit in a spice rack but one of my favourite things I keep in the spice cupboard is Bacon Bits (vegetarian friendly btw.) Great for topping cheese on toast, pasta bakes etc.

Kilty_2

Taking notes, thanks everyone so far

Also - cheapest place to buy them? Don't need them in glass jars because the spice rack has it's own bottles....

kjmtidea

Garlic, onion granules, mixed herbs, italian mixed herbs, cayenne, paprika, coriander. The range are good for herbs, they do really big pots of them which works out a lot cheaper. If you buy them in the supermarket then make sure you check the ingredients if you buy the cheaper brands, sometimes the mixed herbs have a lot of one thing and not much of the others!

ragz_2

At last count I had over 30... MIL bought me a spice rack a few years ago that holds 12, never got used I have far too many.
Most used would be
Basil
Oregano/Marjoram (whichever I have)
Chilli powder
Ground cumin
Ground Coriander
Smoked paprika
Rosemary
Cardamom pods
Fenugreek seeds
Fenugreek leaves
Chinese 5 spice
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Garlic powder
Onion Granules
Cayenne pepper
Garam Masala
Thyme
Sage
In no particular order. Take out the fenugreeks (I use a lot in curry) and you have your 16.

Lucyeff wrote: »

The problems with herbs and spices is that they all come in different sized packets and jars, don't they? I'd probably get the posh bottles to decant them into and end up with half bottles in the cupboard that I'd used to top up the posh ones and get so upset and bewildered by it all eventually that I'd end up ordering take aways until 2018 when all the lot had gone out of date anyway!

Haha That'd be me too, which is why I have restrained myself from buying a load of posh jars. I've started saving random ones and using them for the spices I buy in bags (Asian ones) but still seem to have bits of bags left over, am tempted to give them away just so they aren't in the way!

splodger_seedswapper

i buy large bags of key spices from large local tesco store - which has an ethnics sort of section - and it is so cheap compared to those silly little jars and refill packs

my top list:
paprika
chilli powder
tumeric
coriander seed
peppercorns
chilli seed
garam masala
ground coriander
ground ginger


herbs i either dry and or freeze or use fresh