If you decide to eat vegetarian and vegan (more often), it makes sense to have a stock of herbs and spices as standard. These spice tips will help you make tasty vega(n) dishes and get even a meat lover excited.
Asian spice tips
When my wife Saskia, founder of thegreenlist.nl, started to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, we were flexitarians who ate meat several times a week. Soon she also wanted to make our diet more sustainable. At first, I was moderately enthusiastic about this intention, but soon that changed and now I make lots of delicious vegetarian and sometimes even vegan meals at home. I like to cook recipes from Southeast Asian cuisine. On the one hand, this has to do with my Chinese-Indonesian roots; on the other hand, we find vega(n) Thai, Indonesian and Indian cuisine just insanely delicious.
This time, I am sharing my spice tips! As far as I am concerned, these are spices and gadgets that you should have in your home as standard if you love Asian cuisine. Vegetarian and vegan cooking has made spices play a bigger role in my dishes. If you apply the right high-quality spices in the right quantity, I'm sure you can get even the biggest meat lover to go with it. I can know, because I am one myself. And I don't actually miss meat at all because of the way I cook now. Do you already know these simple tricks that can quickly take your vega(n) cooking skills to the next level?
David in the kitchen, his favourite place at home.
1. Freezing herbs
A basic tip for me: did you know that you can freeze many spices? This is not only a great tip to waste less food. It's also incredibly convenient, as you can stock up without worrying about food spoilage. I have two drawers in the freezer filled with spices as standard. Herbs that are good to freeze are lime leaf, lemongrass, ginger and chilli peppers. You can buy these spices at the toko or Asian wholesale. As soon as I start cooking, I take out what I need. Frozen and all, I chop the herbs small with a sharp knife or I puree it in a electric coffee grinder (Really a top thing for spices and also great to score on Marktplaats). Tip for a good chopper I also have! I like a Kiwi brand knife and it is quite affordable.
2. Always work with whole herbs
Cumin seeds, coriander seeds and cardamom are delicious spices. But buy them as whole spices and not in powder form. I once picked up this spice tip through a YouTube cook and this makes your dishes so much tastier. Most big supermarkets sell whole spices, but otherwise you can definitely find it at the toko or Asian wholesaler.
3. Tidy kitchen: ensure overview with spice rack
Work with whole herbs as much as possible is my tip, but I also really can't do without my trusty powdered herbs. You need these a lot anyway and during the week this is so convenient isn't it? So I use both. I have a great tip for this too: invest in a good spice rack. This prevents double purchases and food waste. And it just works really well to have all your spices in alphabetical order. Maybe you recognise it, but before we had this rack, our spice rack was a mess. We had jars of different brands and therefore different sizes. As a result, we lost track of everything and sometimes had double or even triple items. And so we never finished those three jars of dill... And so we invested in this rack.
Every time Saskia this spice rack shares on Instagram, her inbox explodes. And that's why I'm sharing it here too. Looking for more handy kitchen gadgets? I shared my favourites with you here.
Spice tip: a coffee grinder and a nice spice rack.
Asian spice shopping list
The following spices are not to be missed in Asian cooking. In my experience, you can find all these ingredients in a good supermarket or at a toko or Asian wholesaler. For each spice, it is indicated where you can buy it.
Spice tips for the freezer
- Laos (toko)
- Lime leaf (toko)
- Lemongrass (toko)
- Ginger (supermarket & toko)
- Turmeric root (toko)
- Chilli peppers (toko)
(Whole) herbs in the spice drawer
You can find almost all of these spices in the supermarket:
- Cumin seeds
- Coriander seed
- Cardamom
- Dried salam leaf (toko)
- Good garam masala from a better supermarket
Other herbs and spices for your kitchen cupboard
You can find these spices at the toko or Asian wholesaler:
- Dried szechuan pepper (grains)
- Dried szechuan pepper (whole chillies)
- Kemiri nuts (you use these for Indonesian dishes. Often this nut is replaced in the west by the much more expensive macadamia nut, so also budgetwise really recommend getting kemiri nuts in the house. Note that you can not eat raw).
A summary of the herbs mentioned. Want to know more about storing herbs correctly? Then check out these tips from 24 Kitchen.
Get started with these herbal tips
I wish you good luck with searching and experimenting in the kitchen. One last tip: above all, don't go overboard with spices: dose! It is much easier to add something more than to mute an overpowering flavour. If you do go to the toko for spices, you might still find this shopping list useful: groceries from the toko, this is not to be missed in veg cooking!
More food tips from thegreenlist.nl
- Have you ever thought about your pans. Are they environmentally friendly? We did a search for eco-friendly pans.
- Cooking oil is not that environmentally friendly either, but there are definitely differences. Read more about our little research on oil you can fry and bake with.
Photo credits: thegreenlist.nl.
