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Hey guys, I like cooking. Making good food makes me happy, especially when I can share it with others. I am not really a from scratch type of person when it comes to the sauces and seasonings. I buy packets of seasoning or bottles and jars of sauce as I need them. They are definitely good and they get the job done, but I feel I could do better. However, the only spices I normally keep are salt and pepper, maybe some onion/garlic powder. Cayenne pepper very rarely. I need to expand my horizons. I need some advice.

Dakkadakka chefs and foodies, what are your favorite mixes of spices, dry rubs, and sauces?

Find either the Fajita or Mesquite Fajita seasoning here:
http://ralphsspices.com/

Sometimes found at Walmart.

Then, take some rando smoked paprika and mix the Ralph's Fajita seasoning with the smoked paprika in a 5:1 ratio.

I literally use this seasoning on everything, but my favorite is on chicken.

Bad Byron's Butt Rub is pretty legit for a dry rub for smoking. It's also great on poultry, period - I use it on turkey before I deep fry it.

My mom used Sazon in pretty much all meats when I was a kid. It's pretty amazing for putting on pork chops and then pan frying them.

My absolute favorite steak marinade.

Slap Ya Mama is great on chicken, but it's got a lot of kick so use sparingly until you know how much you like..

I use Louie's for my Italian Beef. Pretty much amazing really. Highly suggest it.

I have high hopes that Uncle Billy's Voo Doo Jerk Slather will be making a local comeback, since Uncle Billy's - a local BBQ place - has reopened after a twenty year hiatus.

I gather that Uncle Billy's had things other than jerked chicken, but somehow I never got past that spot on the (yum!) menu.

The Auld Grump

I'm not a big user of ready made dry rubs and stuff. I like to make my own marinades with olive oil, garlic, Worcester sauce, brown sauce, herbs, and so on.

My wife is great at making Japanese sauces and seasonings using mirin, ponzu, sake, soy sauce, ginger and the like.

A lot will depend on your personal tastes. Everybody has their secret sauce or magic ingredient. You can go a long way with just salt, pepper, and different cooking techniques.

Anyway, garlic and onion powder are good to have. Paprika is also a very good workhouse, both smoked and unsmoked (using smoked is a trick to simulate the flavor of the grill). A very good quality chili powder can often add a lot of flavor. Soy sauce is a must have, as it's a great way to add both salt and that savory flavor.

I like to marinade steaks and burgers in Dale’s, and maybe some worchestershire too. Can’t go wrong with teriyaki for chicken. A lot will depend on what you’re cooking tho. I’d recommend a garlic press and cloves instead of garlic powder- it’s much better flavor-wise. When I’m being lazy I like to use Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning on just about everything- great for jambalaya or gumbo specifically. Otherwise I ask the wife what’s best- she keeps a fully stocked spice rack so we’ve got a lot I don’t even know what it is.

It depends a lot on what you're cooking, and in what style.

Italian uses lots of oregano, basil, and garlic; Hungarian is all about the paprika; Mexican is focused on chili powder and cayanne pepper, but can benefit greatly from cumin. Mideastern cooking often combines cumin, coriander, and cinnamon... and sometimes even mint. Indian cooking uses curry powder, tumeric, and saffron.

Garlic and onion show up just about everywhere.

Chicken and pork can both work well with nothing more than a dry-rub of sage. Beef often requires a subtle mixture of seasonings, as it's easy to overwhelm the flavor of the meat.

Your best bet may be to look at recipes that interest you on the internet, and see what spices they use.

mix flour with salt, pepper, paprika & that powdered fake Parmesan cheese in a ziplock bag. add cubes of chicken breast & shake until the chicken is all coated. shallow fry in hot oil. when the chicken's nearly done add some sliced red, green & yellow peppers. serve with rise & a simple green salad with a balsamic vinegar dressing.

As far as simple spices:

I think Smoked Paprika is a great tool for kicking up all kinds of stews and soups, and it gives it an infusion of deep and complex flavors. A little goes a long way though, so taste as you season.

White Pepper is another spice that is often underused and has a great profile and can be added to just about anything.

Even your basic salt and pepper can be a lot more potent if you invest in a grinder for each.

The trick with pretty much all spices is to buy a small container and then just use it. They all go stale with age rather quickly.

or
fry some Chorizo sausage in a pan - no need for oil as the sausage will give plenty. Add some chopped onion & garlic. Fry until soft. Add some cubed stewing steak. Fry until brown. Add some passata or tinned tomatoes + some beef stock. Let it cook for as long as possible (1 hour min). Serve with either pasta (fusilli or conchiglie work well) or basmati rice, with a simple green salad on the side.

Personally enjoy a bit of nutmeg on all sorts of meats dishs.

dunno why.

A little nutmeg mixed into some mashed potatoes is great.

I generally make my own seasoning, using a wide variety of herbs and spices (I have quite a collection of different spices from across the world). It is my favourite part of cooking. On the other hand, I tend not to use salt (or at least, as little as possible). Salt is unhealthy, and most food you can get in a supermarket has already had salt added to it. Most people nowadays consume way too much salt, which is why I stopped using it and try to compensate for it with herbs and spices. Generally, the only times when I add salt is when I make something from raw ingredients or with some soups that just really aren't as tasty without additional salt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bubber wrote:
or
fry some Chorizo sausage in a pan - no need for oil as the sausage will give plenty. Add some chopped onion & garlic. Fry until soft. Add some cubed stewing steak. Fry until brown. Add some passata or tinned tomatoes + some beef stock. Let it cook for as long as possible (1 hour min). Serve with either pasta (fusilli or conchiglie work well) or basmati rice, with a simple green salad on the side.

That is a great recipe.

 Desubot wrote:
Personally enjoy a bit of nutmeg on all sorts of meats dishs.

dunno why.

Nutmeg is an ingredient in a lot of colonial era cooking. Jas Townsend has a YouTube channel for stuff like that.

I also like looking up Alton Brown's Good Eats series. He has a lot of good basic seasoning mixes.

As for myself, My favorite "cheat" is Old Bay as a base for a rib rub. Easy to mellow out with sugars and other seasonings. Remember, a little heat goes a long way.

d-usa wrote:As far as simple spices:



White Pepper is another spice that is often underused and has a great profile and can be added to just about anything.

THIS is what I came in here to post. I stumbled onto this gem while doing a field feed, and we were trying to doctor up our breakfast menu. We mixed up a can of white pepper, salt, garlic, and a hint of onion powder that we used religiously in the scrambled eggs and on the has browns. We also had an incident where a jackass E-5 didn't pack the seasoning, so we were left with nothing to doctor up the breakfast steaks. I saw we had a metric ton of Italian dressing packs, so we spent about an hour ripping these damn things open to soak the steaks in the dressing overnight. This is now my go to steak treatment, it was that damn good.

The spices I use change depending on what I feel like eating. Usually if I’m gonna grill a steak, I just use salt, pepper and garlic powder on both sides. That’s like the base I use for everything else. For pork chops, I’ll add in some thyme, chicken I like to add in some rosemary. My girlfriend also picks up lots of organic spice blends, the brand she likes best is Frontier Co-Op. I use like half a jar of their chili powder when I make chili, it’s tasty. Their Mexican fiesta seasoning is great too.

I use this probably more than is healthy:

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/emerils-essence-creole-seasoning-3644454


For expanding horizons though, I started with the BS starter kits (you know, the spice rack turn tables that come with 16 different ones), which aren't bad. . . you'll find through experimentation which ones you like and which you dont. If you don't want to go that route, take a gander at various cook books (like Emeril's, for example), try out some of their recipes and spice configurations.


For sauces specifically, I use Stubbs barbeque sauce (in a variety of flavors), low sodium Soy Sauce (cuz seriously, there's more sodium in Soy sauce than there is in salt!!!!!!! ) I also, due to laziness/time constraints, use Newman's own red sauces for spaghetti, and various alfredo sauces from the jar as well.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I use this probably more than is healthy:

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/emerils-essence-creole-seasoning-3644454


For expanding horizons though, I started with the BS starter kits (you know, the spice rack turn tables that come with 16 different ones), which aren't bad. . . you'll find through experimentation which ones you like and which you dont. If you don't want to go that route, take a gander at various cook books (like Emeril's, for example), try out some of their recipes and spice configurations.


For sauces specifically, I use Stubbs barbeque sauce (in a variety of flavors), low sodium Soy Sauce (cuz seriously, there's more sodium in Soy sauce than there is in salt!!!!!!! ) I also, due to laziness/time constraints, use Newman's own red sauces for spaghetti, and various alfredo sauces from the jar as well.

Newmans Own Sockarooni is amazing when making meatballs. I would like to learn to make my own but for a jar of store bought, Newmans Own is solid.

I generally go for Sweet Baby Rays bbq sauce but stubbs is also good.

Shout out to a local sauce. Country Bob's is an all purpose sauce. If you are interested, go for the Steak, Chicken, and Fries sauce, as it is the original. Just done use it on steak. Amazing on chicken or a pork chop though. Sweet and spicy. Amazing stuff.

Stubbs chicken marinade is the secret to my grilled wings. I soak em in that overnight, then just add some salt & pepper before throwing em on the grill. While they're grilling I baste on Texas Pete wing sauce so it gets cooked in, rather than coating them with it at the end. They're hella tasty.

For regular BBQ sauce my go to brand is Rufus Teague's Honey Sweet.

Big fan of Stubb’s myself. I’ll throw a third recommendation in for it.

I personally like to have a selection of herbs and spices ready on hand. If stored in air-tight small containers, they are good to use for several months. I normally have no ready-made spice mixes and tend to make my own.
My basic spice supply consists of:
Salt and pepper in a mill
Oregano (dried): great with veggies, especially tomatoes
Basil (dried, in summer fresh from my balcony): one of my favorites, works with a lot of stuff, plus tomatoes love basil.
Rosmary (dried, fresh in summer): lovely with meat, probably my favorite.
Paprika: My mother's family has roots in Hungary, so I basically grew up with lots of paprika. Great stuff!
Bay leaves: great for stuff like stews
Nutmeg (ground): Not used that often, but essential for the Bechamel for Lasagna.
Dried chilies: I like it spicy, so these are used rather often. Great to use, you just have to watch out that you don't use too much or cook it too long.
Chives (fresh): I normally have some chives in a glass of water I tend to use over the course of a week. Mostly used to garnish stuff, but I love it with scrambled eggs or in soups or with oven potatoes.
Fresh parsley: Quite an allrounder, also tends to survive rather well over the winter.
Curry powder: I love curries and some ready-made high quality curry powder is quite easy to use.
Normally I also have some dried thyme or other stuff I fancy.


Additionally:
Tabasco: Again, spicy. Plus a classic.
Worcestershire Sauce: great with beef.
Soy sauce:
Ketchup
Mustard

That is what I tend to have in my kitchen at all times. I love making Sauces, like a yoghurt sauce with some fresh herbs and/or garlic. Also, my mother sometimes makes an amazing mango chutney I adore and could eat without anything^^