This past weekend I spent some time restocking our spice drawer, and it made me realize how many of our go-to, “easy weeknight” dinners and breakfasts depend heavily on having a pre-mixed (or pre-purchased) spice blend ready and waiting in the pantry. I thought you might enjoy seeing a few of our family favorites.
1. Trader Joe’s Chile Lime Seasoning Blend
I reach for this simple and inexpensive blend often, for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. It’s great on everything from roasted chickpeas to scrambled eggs to grilled meats. It’s a real hero when I use it—as I often do—to turn a can of black beans into an instant side dish. Add to taste, microwave for a minute, and done.
While we all enjoy the flavor around here, sometimes I use it to add a dash of color to pretty up a dish, like I did the other night when we had make-your-own-burrito-bowls for dinner and I added a few shakes to the pile of cooked shredded chicken. That pile of chicken didn’t necessarily need to be pretty, but it took me all of four seconds to do it so why not?
2. Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel Sesame Seasoning Blend
Sara has waxed poetic about this cult classic before: check out her post called A Pinch of perfection, a shower of mess: a love letter to Everything But the Bagel Seasoning. I enjoy this more than anyone else in our family, and use it most often on hardboiled eggs for breakfast and cottage cheese for a snack.
3. Family Meal Fish Taco recipe ( NYT Cooking gift link)
We love Sam Sifton’s fish taco recipe (linked above), but now keep this blend on hand and use not only for fish and shrimp tacos but any number of things that might benefit from a blend that’s heavy on chile powder, garlic powder, and paprika. I might use this more often for roasted chickpeas than for fish tacos! (I use Jenny Rosenstrach’s roasted chickpeas as inspiration, but use a lot less olive oil, and the air fryer instead of the stovetop.)
4. Ras al hanout
We use this for just one thing, but it’s one of our very favorites: the Moroccan Spiced Chicken over Couscous from Fresh Off the Grid. That recipe may be from a camping blog, but we make it all the time at home, not just in the great outdoors. I’m sure we could enjoy branching out and putting this blend to use in new ways—if you have ideas, please share in comments!
5. Blackened chicken seasoning (NYT Cooking gift link)
The newest addition to our spice drawer is a winner! All six of us have loved it from the first time we made it and fight (affectionately, of course) over the leftovers. In a recent Links I Love post, I shared how the first night we had this recipe over a creamy lemon-garlic linguine (another NYT Cooking gift link).
Now whenever it’s time to mix up a batch, I double or triple the recipe so we can keep some on hand. The seasoning is interesting on its own, but not so distinctive you can’t use leftover seasoned chicken in a variety of dishes like one of our frequent-of-late dinners in bowls. The recipe shared above is technically for sautéed chicken breasts, but you can make just the spice mix; you can also modify the recipe by grilling the chicken as we’ve been doing all summer long.
What are your go-to spices and seasoning blends? Please tell us in comments!
P.S. 10 delightful cookbooks for reading, cooking, and gifting and 20 interesting recipes to make for dinner with boneless skinless chicken breasts.
29 comments
I love Baharat. I think I made it after reading one of Mel Joulwan’s cookbooks and I use it on roasted sweet potatoes, butternut squash and beets. I don’t eat any meat but I’m sure it would be delicious on anything. Sometimes I’ll roast all 3 together, sometimes individually. I don’t eat any meat but I’m sure it would be delicious on anything. It’s cinnamon-y and spicy and has just a lovely blend of flavors that doesn’t seem too… autumnal? Anyways I use it year round, it’s delicious!!
So do you just lightly coat the chick peas in olive oil and then only air fry them?
Yes, I toss them with a little olive oil (a teaspoon?), seasoning, and a little salt (depending on the salt level in the seasoning I reach for) and air fry. We have a Ninja all-in-one and I usually use the air fry setting for about 12 minutes at 425.
Ras el Hanout is great in cookies. NYT adds to Chocolate Chip cookies. I made Ras el Hamout cookies using olive oil from The Tasty Other yesterday. They went over well.
Thanks for these ideas! We love the 21 Seasoning Salute from TJ’s on any roasted vegetable. It is so good!
Penzey’s and Oaktown spice shop (they ship!) have some fun spice blends. Garam masala is a staple in my home and I also like experimenting with new to me combinations. I love how roasted and blended spices bring a complexity that far exceeds single spices.
We have a literal door rack (7 shelves) full of Penzey’s spices – -my all time favorite is FoxPoint — I could eat that on something every day.
Sabrina, now I am entranced by the idea of a door rack for spices!
Adobo seasoning on homemade fries is a Sunday night staple in our house!
I use a local shop Savory Spice Shop and some of my favorite blends are: MT Olympus Greek Seasoning blend, Salt free Cajun Blackening blend and their Buffalo wing dry rub ( fantastic on cauliflower).
I’ve fallen in love with Burlap & Barrel and their quarterly spice club. Favorites lately are cardamom and wood-fired maple sugar on my morning toast, smoked paprika, oregano, Hungarian hot paprika, five spice blend, and I’m always finding new favorites.
It’s not a blend, but their Royal Cinnamon is so good I will never use another brand! An almost sweet, intense cinnamon flavor – fantastic! Other favs from there are the Black Lime & Chili Salt, Purple Stripe Garlic Powder, Wild Mesquite Powder and Smoked Black Cardamom.
I shake everything seasoning on just about everything, even bagels!
I never liked cumin much until I tasted the Roasted Cumin powder from Spicewalla (I order it from them online). Now I know why people roast and grind their own cumin seeds! The flavor after roasting is so different. But I use the shortcut of buying the roasted powder. Also special and amazing (but expensive) are the spices from Diasporaco.com. Their turmeric and their ginger and their cinnamon powders are so much more vibrant and alive than those from other brands.
Penzeys’ Fox Point is an incredible blend. It is somewhat expensive but I find it worth it. Crisp-tender green beans cooked in a mix of butter and olive oil, with a liberal application of Fox Point… a side dish that will go with simply everything.
Ooh: I didn’t read all the comments to see that there is another FoxPoint lover around. It is SO good.
Look for chaat masala at your local Indian grocery store. I am not sure if it is an acquired taste since I grew up eating it, but a sprinkle of it gives a lot of dishes the oomph they may be missing. The secret ingredient in the mix is black salt, which has a sulphuric funk. I know this doesn’t sound great but trust me and try it. 🙂 In India they will even sprinkle it on a bowl of mixed fruit.
Chaat Masala is the best! I think I discovered it through Smitten Kitchen, but our family lived in India for a year and Chaat Masala takes us back for a little while.
This isn’t a spice blend, but fresh curry leaves are, in my opinion, the ingredient that sets apart really top-notch Indian food. They’re also kind of earthy and funky, but they have become a non-negotiable for me in dals and curries.
Fresh curry leaves are incredible! Such a unique and complex flavor. Fortunately now widely available at Indian grocery stores. In a pinch even dried leaves give some flavor, albeit a pale ghost. I’m glad you have fond memories of India!
Pepperoni spice from Local Spicery is amazing! Especially for those of us who don’t eat pepperoni! 🙂
I keep Penzey’s lemon peel in my cabinet in case I need lemon zest and don’t have a lemon on hand. Quick and easy to reconstitute with a little water.
The Capitol Hill seasoning blend from Savory Spice is my go-to for so many things! The shallots and dill make it fabulous to use on eggs, veggies, in casseroles…just about anything! My local store closed and I still stock up online.
We love so many spice mixes from Spiceology, but our favorites are Black Magic, Vampire Killer, and Greek Freak. We mix Black Magic with mayo and add it to chicken before grilling. They’re always adding new, fun mixes.
Four spice blends from Penzey’s: Justice, which has all the alliums (garlic, onion, shallot, leek, scallion and chive) and it’s salt free so you can control that separately. So good on popcorn, cottage cheese, fish, chicken. Also: Fox Point, Sunny Paris and Tuscan Sunset.
I heartily second the recommendations of both Justice and Sunny Paris (which is also available through the Spice House). Both these are delicious on all kinds of potatoes!
We use Cavender’s All Purpose Greek Seasoning ALL. THE. TIME. On pork, steaks, burgers, scrambled eggs. I couldn’t cook without it!
I use Ras al hanout on roasted carrots, cauliflower and chickpeas over cous cous or rice. So good! I haven’t heard of adding it to cookies and am going to have to look that up!
I love shopping for spices, especially when we travel. That’s how I found The Spice House in Chicago (part of the Penzey family) and they have many blends that are my go-tos: Back of the Yard Garlic Pepper Butcher’s Rub, Lake Forest Drive Shallot and Herb and so many more. I also have to plug Old Bay because I’m a MD girl (corn! roasted potatoes! popcorn! chicken salad!). My summer go-to appetizer has been a big smear of labne on a plate topped with roasted cherry tomatoes and then a healthy sprinkle of either ras-el-hanout, za’atar, or fresh soft herbs like thyme and basil. A drizzle of olive oil, and done! I love to serve it with seedy crackers. For fall I might try switching tomatoes out for squash or sweet potatoes.
I’m obsessed with Sohla El-Waylly’s “ranch fun dip” which unlike it sounds is actually a dry mix, and although she suggests dipping vegetables in it, I sprinkle it on everything. It makes a particularly great popcorn seasoning! It also happens to be vegan, which makes some people in my family very happy.
https://food52.com/recipes/83477-ranch-fun-dip-recipe
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