Condiments & Seasonings

I guarantee it’s already in your spice cabinet.

Hear me out.

A brief history of America’s favorite condiment.

This Korean red pepper paste will add serious kick and depth of flavor to anything you stir it into.

From ras el hanout to herbes de provence, herb and spice mixes are essential to many cuisines around the world. Bringing these blends into your own kitchen can lend authenticity to international dishes and provide creative inspiration for your everyday cooking. Ready for this trip across the globe? No passport required! Berbere Berbere – A heady combination of spicy, bitter, and sweet spices used in Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Vanilla beans are magical. Not only do they look like fairy wands and have an aroma that always brings me to a standstill, but these beans have the ability to transform scoops of ice cream into childhood memories and dishes of crème brûlée into marriage proposals. Using them is easy; wait to scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod until you’re ready to use them. They are definitely not to be squandered or taken for granted.

I’ve been adding curry paste to an assortment of old standby dishes to give them a bit of kick. If you have half a can of curry paste lying about here are a few unexpected ways to put it to good use!I’ve written about my favorite curry paste in the past and it should be noted that I am a huge fan of green over red curry pastes. That’s simply a matter of taste, but I have found that I have better luck controlling the heat without many surprises.

Grab a few sticks of butter and a small saucepan and let's upgrade our beloved butter to fragrant, nutty brown butter.

Celery leaves — known primarily as a throwaway top to an already underappreciated vegetable — are so often discarded. It’s a real shame. Celery leaves are actually a bonus to their stalks and completely virtuous on their own. Here’s everything you need to know about prepping them and turning them into a vibrant pesto. Celery leaves are delicious, nutritious, and packed with intense celery flavor.

Nut-free? These tasty alternatives will make you forget all about peanut butter.

These tangy little buds are a pantry staple when it comes to jazzing up a weeknight pasta or adding the perfect finishing touch to a plate of cured salmon. Just a spoonful of capers can make a whole dish sing. Do you ever cook with them?Capers are actually the immature flower buds of the caper bush, a shrub-like plant that hails from the Mediterranean region. The buds are picked just before they reach ripeness and pickled either in a salt brine or in vinegar.

Pad thai and many other Southeast Asian dishesThese blocks of tamarind pulp are the tamarind fruit pods stripped of the outer husk and compressed tightly together. Sometimes the seeds are removed, but we usually find a few errant seeds even in packages marked “seedless.” The pulp itself is very fibrous, so we need to soften it and push it through a fine-meshed strainer to separate the edible pulp from the strands of fiber.First cut off the portion you need.

Do you have a bottle of clam juice in your pantry? Maybe the bottle you have is lurking in the back of the fridge after you used it in that one recipe that called for one tablespoon. Let’s be honest — this isn’t an ingredient making it into your everyday cooking. Well, not until now. Clam juice can also be used in cocktails, pastas, stir-fries, and deglazing your pan. Here are five ways to use clam juice so that bottle doesn’t get lost in the dark depths of your fridge.

Maybe you’ve heard of harissa, but have you ever tried it? If you love condiments and adding a kick of spice to your meals, you’ll want to check this out! Harissa is a spicy and aromatic chile paste that’s a widely used staple in North African and Middle Eastern cooking. Harissa recipes vary between countries and regions, but a standard version includes a blend of hot chile peppers (which are often smoked), garlic, olive oil and spices, like cumin, coriander, caraway and mint.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to enjoy renting a house or apartment when I travel. It makes my trip feel more personal and comfortable than staying in a hotel, and above all I really love having the option to cook at least some of my meals. I’ve also learned that creativity is essential when you’re cooking while traveling. Aside from basic cookware, utensils and dishes, my expectations for the kitchen in my vacation rental are pretty low.

Both rice wine and rice vinegar are widely used in Asian cooking, but they’re two very distinct products. Do you know what sets them apart, and when to use each one? While both products are made from fermented rice, the difference is in the manner in which each one is produced, as well as how they’re used. These two can easily be confused, since rice vinegar is sometimes also labeled as rice wine vinegar (which is a vinegar, and not wine).

Here are three tricks I use to give my everyday rice a little extra oomph in the flavor department.

That little jar of red or green Thai curry sitting in your fridge adds a powerful punch of spicy flavor to whatever it’s added to. And while it’s great for making curries, don’t be afraid to use it in other dishes too — here are some of our favorites ways to use it. The beauty of soups that use Thai curry paste is that you usually don’t have to simmer them for very long since the paste is so flavorful by itself.

Fresh ginger is a staple in my kitchen. It is an extremely versatile ingredient that shows up in any course, from savory to sweet, be it main, beverage, dessert, or salad. It can even be medicine — hot ginger tea with lemon, honey and brandy will cure what ails you! In short, fresh ginger is essential to my cooking. Read on for my methods for peeling and mincing fresh ginger.

Do you know?

I have an ongoing real estate battle in my refrigerator door between condiments and cocktail ingredients. While I can ignore boozes and bitters since they seem to last practically forever, condiments definitely have shorter shelf lives and need to be pruned occasionally. We can all read a date stamp, but an opened container is another thing. Here’s a rundown of some of the most common condiments and how long they last once they’re opened.

Pomegranate molasses has become one of my favorite ingredients, but it’s a tricky one for many people. Perhaps you, like our assistant editor Ariel, bought a bottle to make one recipe, such as muhammara, and now you’re wondering what else to do with it. Ariel has been after me for months to write down a list of more ideas for pomegranate molasses.

More and more of us are discovering what a fantastic ingredient concentrated miso paste can be in our daily cooking – and not just for soup! Happily, many major stores have caught on and are starting to carry a variety of traditional misos to choose from. There are different types of misos and each is made from soybeans that have been fermented with either rice, barley or other grains. The real question is: how to choose?

These are the two best ways to do it!

With all the bean talk this month, we started thinking about which herbs and spices go well with specific varieties of beans. In general, most beans go well with herbs like parsley, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme. You usually can’t go wrong with garlic and onions, either. Specific kinds of beans, like fava beans or mung beans, have other affinities with particular herbs and spices.This is not to say that other combinations won’t work.

What are you most looking forward to cooking this autumn? Whether it’s a hearty stew, a batch of fall cookies Toss what’s stale, note what you use often and need more of, and replenish in preparation for cooking rich savory dishes, baked goods, and holiday meals (they will be here before we know it!). Although spices don’t spoil, most should be used within 6 to 12 months for maximum freshness.

Q: I just bought a bag of ground chipotle powder. I’ve never used it before but the smell was intoxicatingly delicious and I couldn’t resist buying it! I searched online for some recipes but had a tough time finding something appropriate for me (no red meat).I’m curious about some of your favorite recipes using ground chipotle powder which don’t involve red meat.Sent by LeahEditor: Leah, chipotle powder is one of my very favorite seasonings.

Canning feels like equal parts science and magic. Sure, we understand the basic facts of cooking the fruit and sealing it inside jars. But you can’t deny there’s something magical about opening that jar months later and spooning out a taste of summer. Pectin is one of the key players in this magical process. Ever wonder what it’s doing?Pectin is a gelling agent that helps to thicken and solidify the fruit juices.

One of our favorite parts of summer is the abundance of fresh herbs–often in our own back yards!We find ourselves throwing herbs into everything we cook, relishing in their fresh green flavors. Since these herbs are so fresh, it doesn’t take a lot of persuasion to bring out their best flavor. We need to give them a little more TLC than their dried counter parts!

Many of us keep heaps of spices on hand in the kitchen, and that can create quite the storage conundrum. From wrangling dozens of little bulk-bin bags to rummaging around in the cupboard for the right jar, the whole process shouldn’t be so maddening. We love seeing how other cooks store and organize their spices because we’re always on the lookout for that “why didn’t I think of that?” tip.

I love cayenne, don’t get me wrong. It adds a fantastic heat to any dish from scrambled eggs to curry. It’s just that sometimes I get a little bored of seeing “cayenne, optional” listed in recipes and need a reminder that there are other spices and seasonings out there that can give these dishes some serious kick.I’ll bet most of these seasonings are living in your fridge or cupboard right now, just waiting for to jump in and save the day.

As a kid, pancakes weren’t pancakes without the good stuff. And by the good stuff, I mean real maple syrup — not that artificially flavored, corn syrup-laden imposter. We’d pick up a big jug in the spring and it would last us through the year, for special weekend breakfasts and early morning oatmeal. Now, as an adult, my pantry isn’t fully stocked unless there’s a bottle of maple syrup in it. But lately I’ve discovered that just one bottle won’t cut it.

Use them to add tons of flavor to soups, stews, collards, and more.

No blanching required.

The technique is inspired by In-N-Out.

Some recipes get pretty specific about the kind of wine they want you to use: an oaky chardonnay in this reduction sauce, a hearty Italian red for that braise. But does it really matter?We say, go for it. Switch it up! Experiment with flavors! Try something new! All wines will chemically behave in the same way, so there’s no danger that a recipe won’t work if you use a white instead of a red or vice versa.

Tiny upgrades, big results.

The purpose of adding salt isn't to make food tasty salty — it's to enhance the flavors of the ingredients.

It's the instant jolt of color and flavor I'd been searching for since March.

There are some tasks in the kitchen I don’t enjoy: grating cheese, shucking corn, and peeling and chopping garlic among them. The kids can take over some of those tasks, and they should, because — just like my mother told me, over and over — while they live in my house, they have to live by my rules. She also observed that when I had my own house, I could make my own rules. She was right. This totally came true! I make rules all the time! Even though they get broken.

Use them together or individually for that smoky, from-the-grill flavor!

It elevates even the most everyday meal.

Magic happens when two humble condiments join forces.

If you've ever looked at a recipe for pickles or chutneys, you may have encountered an ingredient simply called "pickling spice."

You're one ingredient away from the umami-packed pesto of your dreams.

The truly transformative pantry staple beats the pants off your dry beans.

Turmeric has long been a staple in Indian curries as well as in foods like mustard, but there are lots of other ways to eat and drink this spice.

Yep, the stuff you put in soup. But hear us out: It's *really* good!

Have you ever heard of Ficoco? No? Well, let us introduce you then. Ficoco is a rich, dark spread made in Croatia out of figs and cocoa. It’s lightly sweet, but full of flavor, and it is superb when paired with cheese. Here’s our latest favorite pairing: Humboldt Blue Fog.

Since we’re talking about restocking the pantry let us take a moment to pay homage to a little jar that is always, always, in the refrigerator. Chili garlic sauce, a little bottle of fiery, tangy goodness. We’ve talked about this sauce’s sibling, Sriracha hot chili sauce, that condiment out on the table at Asian restaurants all over the country.

Whoa!

Forget canning and instead look to the freezer.

I received some beautiful packets of dried herbs in the mail last week: fragrant whole buds of thyme and oregano from Greece. I sniffed, I admired. And then I put them in the pantry, because I have no idea what to do with dried herbs. I was genuinely thrown off dried herbs after too much musty dried oregano on homemade pizzas in childhood, and a run-in later with some dried thyme that, for me, ruined a dish. Call me scared, but I just can’t wrap my head around dried herbs.

Despite its name, poultry seasoning has many uses beyond chicken and turkey dishes. We like using this classic herb and spice blend to boost the flavor of vegetable soups.Whether you make your own or buy a it from a store, the basic ingredients in poultry seasoning are usually dried sage and thyme, which give the blend an aromatic, woodsy flavor. Other ingredients might include marjoram, rosemary, celery seed, and black pepper.

Sweating, flushed face, light-headed, fiery mouth? Yup, you’ve been eating chili peppersAll those symptoms that happen in your body when you eat spicy foods are caused by a chemical in chili peppers called capsaicin. It actually enters your bloodstream as you eat and convinces your body that it’s hotter than it actually is, triggering all sorts of reactions meant to cool the body down.1.

How many times have we delicately salted a dish…and salted a little more…and a wee bit more…and then, oops! Suddenly our dish has gone from under-seasoned to tasting like seawater. Can anything be done to save a dish once we’ve added too much salt?Unfortunately, once it’s in there, there’s no getting it back out again – no matter how long you stare at the pot and curse under your breath!

Tamarind is one of the not-so-secret ingredients in a lot of Asian cooking. Eating a bowl of pad thai or a spoonful of chutneyUntil we started researching this post, we didn’t realize that the tamarind tree is actually native to Africa. The ingredient is so ubiquitous to Southeast Asian cuisine that we assumed it was from there! Tamarind trees have also spread to the Pacific islands, Mexico, and parts of South America, and gets used in the cooking from those regions as well.

Do you ever taste a dish at the end of cooking and think that it tastes okay, but just kind of…blah? What you need is something to perk up the flavors, and in our kitchen, that “something” we reach for is almost always a squeeze of lemon!Lemon juice is a magical ingredient, in our humble opinion. It brightens a dish and makes its flavors distinct, but without actually making it taste lemony. If we didn’t say anything, chances are that our guests would never know!

Early in our cooking career and for a long time after, we assumed that you needed to cook garlic as long as its cousin, the onion. Our results were spotty: sometimes it was ok, sometimes we picked burned bits out of our dinner. It wasn’t until we got serious about cooking that we learned another way…Whether they’re being used in a quick stir fry or as the base for a soup or sauce, both onions and garlic need to be cooked at least little to get rid of their raw bite.

It wasn’t easy to settle on just one tip, as there are many excellent techniques in the late Judy Rodgers’ The Zuni Cafe Cookbook (read my review here). I was tempted to highlight her brilliant move of drizzling a teaspoon of hot vinegar over fried eggs to complement and balance their richness. Instead, I landed on this excellent solution for that dreadful moment when you’ve added too much oil to your hand-mixed mayonnaise.