Here is a collection of recipes for exotic, flavourful, homemade spice blends.
If you are trying to eat healthier and cut down on your intake of packaged foods with ingredients you don’t really know or understand, making your own homemade spice blends is a great place to start! After all, spices, herbs, and seasonings are the magic ingredients that give flavour to the food that we cook!
Enjoy exploring and creating with these!
1. Speculoos Spice Blend
Speculoos is the name of spiced crispy cookies popular across the Netherlands, Belgium and other countries. These cookies are characterized by their caramelized, gingerbread-like flavour. You can make your own speculoos blend from scratch right at home to use in your favourite desserts or breakfast items! Simply stir all of the spices together and seal it up in a jar or container to enjoy all year.
2. Homemade Cajun Seasoning
This particular bold, zesty, and homemade Cajun seasoning blend is one of those spice mixes that adds a brilliant depth of flavour to so many savoury dishes. The best part is that you don’t need anything fancy to make it—you probably already have all the ingredients in your spice drawer!
3. Chinese Five Spice Powder
According to ancient Chinese medicine, the five elements (fire, water, wood, earth and metal) are manifested in different parts of the body and when there are imbalances in any of these elements, illness can result. For thousands of years, specific herbs and spices have been used to restore balance in the body and that is the origin of this Chinese five-spice powder. Not only is it rich in flavour but also very simple to make at home!
One lesser-known ingredient this recipe calls for is Szechuan peppercorns, but it can be easily substituted with black or pink peppercorns.
4. Christmas Spice Mix
This homemade spice mix is perfect for all of your holiday baking ideas and can bring festive cheer to so many dishes and drinks. Stir into your latte, spoon into your biscuit dough, sprinkle onto a pie, or stir into your (vegan) buttercream—you can definitely get creative with it! You could even pack it into little glass jars and gift it to your loved ones. Enjoy!
6. Chaat Masala
Chaat masala powder is a very popular Indian spice blend that tastes tangy and tart with a hint of spice. It’s commonly used for making chaats (snacks) such as bhel puri (spicy puffed rice snack) and aloo chaat (Indian potato salad), which are popular street foods in Northern India. However, this spice blend can be used in several other recipes too—try sprinkling some on your popcorn and you’ll be amazed!
The only lesser-known ingredient you’ll need for this is amchoor (dry mango powder), which you should be able to find at your local Indian grocery store.
7. Masala Chai Spice Mix
This small batch homemade masala chai spice is the perfect blend of cardamom, black peppercorn, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and star anise. Add it to black tea and a plant milk of your choice for a fragrant cup of masala chai or use it to flavour your festive baked goods.
8. Za’atar Middle Eastern Spice Mix
Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine calls for za’atar in hundreds of recipes—it’s simply sprinkled on a variety of foods to enhance the flavor. The homemade spice mix can also be mixed with olive oil and made into a sort of paste that is spread on pita bread or as a coating for roasted vegetables. Yum!
The only special ingredients you’ll need for this are sumac and marjoram, while the others should be much easier to source.
9. Korean Magic BBQ Dust
Who says a spice rub is only used for meat?! Our creativity can and must extend far beyond. Use this delicious, umami-loaded BBQ spice mix to rub onto your tofu, mushrooms or veggies (such as eggplant, cauliflower, and bell peppers) before they go into the grill, and they’ll come out bursting with these exotic Korean flavours.
The only special ingredient you’ll need for this is the Korean red chilli powder Gochugaru, while the other ingredients are more-or-less standard ones. If you can’t find Gochugaru, just substitute it with another red chilli powder!
10. Vegan Ranch Mix
It becomes incredibly easy to make a vegan ranch dressing or dip at home once you have this dry mix on hand! With the addition of nutritional yeast, the mix gets that sour, cheesy kick that is characteristic of Ranch. Fresh, homemade, and free from additives, this is SO much healthier than the dry ranch seasoning packets that you see at western grocery stores.
I hope this article has given you some inspiration! Remember that homemade spice mixes tend to settle and sometimes clump up a little at times. Just give the mix a stir each time you use it to refresh the mix.
If you have little ones around, this also makes for a very fun and engaging bonding activity! 🙂
Which homemade spice blend do you plan to try out first? Let us know in the comments.
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