…Other than salt and pepper
For me it’s cumin. It’s one of the few spices I buy in bulk and actually use up my supply.
In the winter it may lean towards cardamom thanks to copious amounts of chia.
Paprika
Paprika is the ultimate understudy of black pepper
Feel kinda bad for white pepper for coming third in a two horse race
Spursy, even
white pepper has its use. I’ve got black, white, cayenne, red flakes, and dried arbol (before we get into my selection of peppers for chili or salsa). I mostly fiddle around with them for whichever mood i’m in when i’m making tomato bisque (always uses two peppers) or red pasta sauce (always uses 3 peppers), but our lemon butter sauce explicitly calls for white pepper because it disappears into the butter.
I buy it at Costco because it is an instant win button on frozen fish, and about any other meat.
Heck, I just threw some into Mac and cheese
Yeah, paprika is my go-to.
It has nothing to do with it being the “third shaker” child of Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper in Blue’s Clues
i love frying up some frozen corn in butter, paprika, garlic, and a little salt
Yes, I agree. But what kind of Paprika is your favorite?
The only two kinds i know are smoked and unsmoked.
I use unsmoked for chicken/veggies and only really use the smoked if I run out lol
I’m a Hungarian Hot Smoked (sweet) Paprika user.
But there is Hungarian Cold Smoked, and Spanish Hot ( and Cold) Smoked Paprika. Of course, there is also generic “paprika” that might be “hot,” or “cold,” or even smoked or not.
Paprika gets complicated when you go down the rabbit hole.
- Paprika
- Powdered/granulated Garlic
- Powdered/granulated Onion
- Cayenne
Basically almost everything I cook has these in there with salt & pepper. Even if I’m using onion and garlic in the recipe.
Garlic by far. Salt, Pepper, Garlic.
After that I use quite a bit of cumin
Is… garlic a spice?
Sure, why not
I’m convinced!
For me it is part of the base meal: smash and dice garlic, turn on the stovetop, dice an onion and start it frying, add garlic, figure out what else to put in the pan.
okay you’re the fifth person i’ve met besides me who (if we’re not at the grill) cooks like that my wife wants to know if you’d like to marry us. that way we’d only each have to cook twice a week except saturday when we all cook.
I’ve tagged you (with love) “onions and garlic!”
i like to joke around about tagging, but is there a way to really do it? because that’s a great tag for me
Oh, I didn’t think of that. It depends on the server. I don’t think lemmy servers support tagging, but piefed servers do. Such tags are only displayed to the person making the tag. Piefed servers have issues with displaying post text from the main display and with previewing comments directly under a post, but they display image posts inline … in a buggy kinda way.
If I’m looking for news, I use my lemmy account. If I’m looking for tv/movie stuff, I use piefed … and also get to tag people :-)
i am hearing better and better things about piefed, but there are people here i like. maybe i’ll have to split time like you.
Maybe they mean garlic powder?
Garlic and cumin. So versatile. Same for me. So many dishes from salsa to refried beans and salads. Gotta have garlic. Infinite possibilities.
Probably paprika
Paprika then garlic powder then black garlic salt/pepper.
Capsaicin
op getting ready to cook some.My house we eat a lot of spicy food. I refuse anything with capsaicin extract, I think it’s cheating and flavorless. We had a bottle of capsaicin extract on the spice rack for six years, I finally threw it out a few months ago. It was only cracked open once, because… well, one drunken night forever ago some fellas decided to try it…
Some top ones for me: MSG, Chicken Bouillon, Smoked Paprika, Thyme, Garlic powder, and finally, controversially, bay leaves.
MSG goes in basically anything. If it gets salt and pepper it’s probably also getting MSG for me. I do a lot of chicken, and whenever I do I’m almost always adding some chicken bouillon to add some flavor to it. I really love Thyme, and find myself just adding it somewhat randomly to things. Smoked Paprika is a perfect flavor that’s so unique, I add it to anything I want to have a bit of a kick, like chili, ect. Not that it’s like spicy or anything, just it adds a little something to those dishes that you can’t really get elsewhere. Garlic powder is an all around great utility, and I tend to “dump” this stuff on things.
Last but not least, Bay leaves. I swear, I’m like the #1 consumer of these things. I throw them in anything. Anything savory with a decent sauce/soupy base is PERFECT to add a bay leaf to. If you use em often you can really taste the difference, since fresh bay leaves really pack a punch in flavor.
People sleep on bay leaves. You really can taste the difference. The experiment I did was to make the standard Kraft blue box mac and cheese, but I added bay. Since I know mac and cheese the bay flavor stood out. It’s just an herb flavor and I use it in any liquid that I’m also using any other herb.
you really need (reasonably) fresh bay leaves tho. They lose flavor fast. If they’re (Reasonably) fresh you can smell what it tastes like.
i was going to say, they can’t be too fresh. we’ve got some laurel trees in our yard and we made that mistake. once.
The dried bay leaves are pointless. You can freeze them though. I keep mine in the freezer.
I buy dry in bulk so it ends up being maybe $0.38 for 100 or so. I put 4-7 in most any soup, stew or the like.
What do you use MSG for? You really use it in everything?
Yeah! It’s like salt but for savory things. There’s a pretty good chance that if I’m cooking with salt and pepper, I’m making something savory, and in those cases MSG improves the flavor of it basically always.
For example: I frequently air fry broccoli. As a base, I toss it in olive oil, salt, pepper, and MSG. If I want it spicy, I’ll add red pepper flakes. Sometimes I substitute salt for season salt for a different vibe. Other times I add garlic powder, or make a balsamic glaze for them. No matter what it’s prolly gonna have salt, pepper, and MSG.
It also goes really well on meat in general. Some cuts of beef don’t really need it cause they’re super savory to begin with, but especially some of the cheaper cuts that aren’t as flavorful.
Another big one is chicken breast. Thighs have more flavor, but when it comes to texture, I like the chicken breast meat better, so in order to boost that savory chicken flavor, I’ll add MSG.
It’s really hard to describe it, MSG is literally just like, pure savory. It’s not quite a salt replacement, tho i could see someone calling it salty, but it really boosts that savory/umami flavor.
Honestly the only time I don’t add pure MSG is when I’m cooking with things that have it included already. A lot of asian food has MSG in ingredients like fish sauce and oyster sauce, it’s totally possible to boost the MSG content of a dish without sprinkling msg onto it.
Complete seasoning is one of my favorites and it has msg
“Controversially bay leaves” has me dying
I also add bay leaves to everything. I found my local co op has them in the bull spice section, they are so freaking fresh.
people say they dont taste like anything so its a bit of a controversial subject.
Theres a huge conspiracy post from years ago about them that had me dying laughing when someone shared it with me, so here for you and anyone who many not have read it.
https://medium.com/the-awl/the-vast-bay-leaf-conspiracy-f9903ddbb520
Here’s how I imagine it. You have a pot of soup on the stove and you go to your spice area and you think, “Man, I’m glad this area isn’t cluttered up with any shitty leaves. Shitty stupid garbage leaves. Little waste of money green things that make you feel crazy. Like leaves from a tree outside, and you throw them in for no reason. Thank god!”
Amazing, thank you for sharing that
nah i’m with you a soup without laurel is not a soup, it’s bathwater
Smoked paprika
The bestest! Love that stuff!
Onion/garlic powder. In roughly equal quantities.
Melange of course. Really gives you that baked in sand worm flavor without having to catch one.
I planted herbs all around my house, so I always have fresh herbs available. But I almost always end up using thyme, occasionally rosemary.
People here keep saying garlic, which I also use extensively but I don’t think of it as a spice.
I don’t think garlic is a spice until the moment it’s dried and ground. Then maybe it’s a spice. Fresh garlic, I agree isnt a spice it’s… what is garlic a vegetable?
What the hell is garlic?
I never use it dried, probably why I don’t think of it as a spice :) In Danish, garlic is called ‘white onion’ so I probably mentally classify it as belonging to that family, which it also does belong to botanically.
I agree to this, at least, my mind works the same. They are root vegetables when they are fresh.
Garlic powder and onion powder, sure could be spice, they are afterall, in the spice section. Onion, garlic found in produce.
an herb, which are often spices.
Fun fact: before it became mass produced sugar was originally considered a spice
A recent cookbook I was using seemed to use sugar as a spice. It was used only in small quantities.
A little bit can go a long way in most dishes. You get used to sweet though and soon you demand more and more.
Is garlic a spice or an ingredient? I use a lot of fucking garlic.
For spice i love paprika
I think in culinary terms garlic is most often used as a spice. Garlic powder would firmly fit the definition but might get more murky if you made a garlic dish (for example roasted garlic and potatoes).
I gotta say I also use to hell out of some garlic. If the recipe calls for like 1 clove I’m gonna be like I think you mean 5.
yeah i’m eating toum right now and it’s both
Hondashi
Gochujang, laoganma
Ginger, soy sauce, roasted sesame, white pepper
I think you know what kinds of food I really like
I love using turmeric. You’d be srprised how well it pairs with so many things, plus it’s very healthy. It goes naturally with a lot of middle eastern and south asian food, but you can also add it to sauces and soups for warm and earthy notes (if that’s your thing like me).
As for spice mixes, I love Cadaver’s greek seasoning. It’s pretty simple (salt, pepper, organo, with a few others) and you can enhance pretty much anything with it
My stainless steel sink hates when I cook with tumeric. Still do occasionally.
Cavender’s Greek Seasoning. Do NOT use Greek cadavers in your food.
Autocorrect lol. I indeed meant “Cavender’s”
Sage. Always from Penzey’s.
I once accidentally dumped too much sage into a sauce. It tasted so good that I kept doing it.
Penzey’s is the shit. They’re awesome.
