Blends and seasoning mixes
How we treat blends
Most of these have no single correct recipe. Garam masala varies by household; ras el hanout varies by merchant, which is the entire meaning of its name. So each blend is recorded as a defining core plus attributed versions, with how firm each set of proportions is stated plainly — rather than one formula presented as authentic.
Achiote paste
A firm brick of annatto seed ground with garlic, cumin, oregano, salt and bitter orange, from the Yucatán. It is what almost every recipe naming achiote actually means, and it tastes far more of the garlic and cumin than of the annatto — which supplies the colour and a base note rather than the dominant flavour.
2 versionsAdobo seasoning
One word covering at least four unrelated things. This record is the dry Latin American seasoning powder — not the Filipino braise, not the Mexican chilli paste, and not the sauce that chipotles in adobo come packed in.
2 versionsNaming noteAdvieh
The Persian aromatic blend, and one that comes in at least two genuinely different forms: a floral one for rice and a warmer, cumin-led one for stews. Calling either of them "Persian spice mix" collapses a distinction Iranian cooking makes carefully.
3 versionsAmerican chili powder
A United States seasoning blend of ground chilli with cumin, oregano and garlic, formulated for chili con carne. Despite the name it is a blend rather than a spice, and it is far milder than the pure ground chilli sold as "chilli powder" elsewhere.
2 versionsNaming noteApple pie spice
Pumpkin spice without the ginger, roughly. It is the mildest of the three sweet-baking blends in this dataset, and the differences between them are small enough to matter only because the dishes they season are.
2 versionsBaharat
A warm, all-purpose Middle Eastern blend whose name simply means "spices" in Arabic. Built on black pepper, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and cloves, with substantial regional variation.
2 versionsBarbecue rub
A category rather than a recipe, and the one blend here where sugar is a structural ingredient rather than a seasoning. That is also why it burns.
2 versionsBerbere
The foundation of Ethiopian and Eritrean cooking, and one of the few chilli blends where the chilli is not the point. It is a warm-spice blend that happens to be hot, and several of its components have no equivalent outside the region.
2 versionsCajun seasoning
A Louisiana seasoning built on paprika, cayenne, garlic, onion and dried herbs. Distinct from Creole seasoning, which is generally more herb-forward — a difference frequently collapsed outside Louisiana.
2 versionsChaat masala
A finishing blend built on sourness and sulphur rather than on warmth. Black salt gives it a smell that people either recognise instantly or find alarming, and there is no version of chaat masala without it.
2 versionsChai masala
The spice mix for masala chai, and not a tea. "Chai" is simply the word for tea across much of Asia, so "chai tea" says tea twice and "chai latte" usually names a sweetened syrup rather than anything made from this blend.
2 versionsChinese five spice
A Chinese blend built around star anise, cassia, cloves, Sichuan pepper and fennel seed. Despite the name, versions with six or seven components are common — "five" refers to the balance of flavours as much as to a count of ingredients.
2 versionsCreole seasoning
The other Louisiana seasoning, and the one people cannot reliably distinguish from Cajun. The short answer is herbs: Creole carries more of them, and the longer answer is about two different histories that happen to share a state.
2 versionsCurry powder
A turmeric-dominant, all-purpose spice powder developed in Britain for the British market from the eighteenth century onwards. It is a real and useful blend with its own culinary traditions — but it is not a South Asian ingredient, and no Indian cuisine treats it as one.
2 versionsNaming noteDukkah
A nut and seed blend rather than a spice blend, and the only one here that is eaten by the spoonful. The name means "to pound", and the texture it describes is the whole point — ground too far it becomes a paste, and stops being dukkah.
2 versionsEverything bagel seasoning
A topping that became a seasoning. Every component is there for texture as much as flavour, which is why it works scattered on things and disappoints stirred into them.
2 versionsFajita seasoning
A Tex-Mex seasoning for grilled or seared strips of beef, chicken or vegetables, built on chilli, cumin, garlic and oregano. There is no single authentic formula — it is a modern restaurant and packaged-goods blend rather than a traditional one.
3 versionsGaram masala
A family of warm aromatic spice blends from the Indian subcontinent, generally added late in cooking or at the end. There is no single formula: it varies by region, by household and by the dish it is intended for.
3 versionsGochujang
A fermented Korean paste rather than a dry spice mixture, and the fermentation is the point: months of enzymatic and microbial work turn a mixture of chilli, grain and soybean into something sweet, savoury and hot at once. Nothing in a jar of dried spices reproduces it.
2 versionsHarissa
A Tunisian chilli paste, not a dry spice mix — and that is the first thing to know, because most of what is sold as harissa outside North Africa is a powder that behaves nothing like it.
3 versionsHawaij: soup and coffee
Two unrelated Yemeni blends sharing one name. Hawaij for soup is a savoury turmeric-and-cumin mixture; hawaij for coffee is a sweet cardamom-and-ginger one. Buying the wrong one is not a shade of difference but a category error.
2 versionsNaming noteHerbes de Provence
Older than Italian seasoning and not much older. The name dates from the 1970s, the herbs are genuinely Provençal, and the lavender that most people think defines it is a later addition aimed largely at export markets.
2 versionsNaming noteItalian seasoning
A North American dried herb blend that is not used in Italy, and contains no spices at all. Useful, widely sold, and worth being clear about: it is a convenience product named after a cuisine rather than a product of one.
2 versionsJerk seasoning
Jamaican, and defined by two ingredients rather than a long list: allspice and scotch bonnet. Most of what makes it jerk is the allspice — which is also the wood it is traditionally cooked over.
2 versionsKhmeli suneli
The Georgian household blend, and one where two of the components — blue fenugreek and dried marigold — are grown almost nowhere else. A jar made without them is a mixed herb blend rather than khmeli suneli.
2 versionsLemon pepper
Two ingredients and a technique. The commercial product is mostly salt, and the difference between a jar and the version made at home is larger than for almost any other blend here.
2 versionsMitmita
Berbere’s hotter, simpler sibling: a fine orange-red Ethiopian blend built on bird’s eye chilli rather than the milder berbere chillies, with a much shorter aromatic list. It is a table condiment as much as a cooking spice.
2 versionsMixed spice
The British baking blend, and a name that means nothing outside Britain. It is not pumpkin spice, though the two overlap enough that recipes are swapped between them and the result is usually acceptable and never identical.
2 versionsPanch phoron
Five whole seeds in equal measure, never ground. It is the one blend in this dataset that is used exclusively whole, and the reason is technique rather than tradition — the seeds are added to hot fat in a specific order because they cook at different rates.
2 versionsFour peppercorn blend
Black, white and green peppercorns with pink berries, sold in a grinder for appearance as much as for flavour. Three of the four are Piper nigrum at different stages; the pink one is a Schinus berry from the cashew family, which matters to anyone with a tree-nut allergy and is almost never stated on the label.
2 versionsPickling spice
A coarse mix of whole spices steeped in hot vinegar for preserving vegetables, fish and meat. British and North American in its current form, with close relatives across Northern and Eastern Europe, and defined as much by the whole-spice format as by any particular composition.
2 versionsPoultry seasoning
Contains no poultry, and is not really for seasoning poultry. It is a stuffing blend — sage-led, bread-facing — and the name has misdirected people for a century.
2 versionsPumpkin spice
Contains no pumpkin. It is the blend for seasoning a pumpkin pie, not a blend made from pumpkin — which is the single most common misunderstanding attached to it, and the reason the name is worth explaining before the ingredients.
1 versionRas el hanout
A North African blend whose name means "head of the shop" — the merchant's finest mix. It has no fixed composition by design: versions range from around ten spices to more than thirty, and no two shops make the same one.
2 versionsSambar powder
A South Indian blend built on roasted lentils as well as spices, which puts it in a different category from garam masala or curry powder: the dal in it thickens as well as flavours, and no North Indian blend does that.
2 versionsSazón
A colouring blend as much as a seasoning. Annatto is what makes Puerto Rican rice orange, and the small foil sachets that most people mean by the name are largely salt and monosodium glutamate around it.
2 versionsSeafood boil seasoning
A celery-salt-led seasoning for boiled crab, shrimp and other shellfish, associated with the Chesapeake Bay region. Built on celery seed, mustard, paprika, bay and black pepper.
1 versionNaming noteSuya spice
The Hausa spice mixture rubbed onto skewered beef before it is grilled over charcoal. Ground peanut is the base rather than an addition, and the chilli, ginger and dried allium around it are what make suya recognisable across West Africa.
2 versionsRasam powder
The Tamil spice mixture for rasam, a thin peppery-sour broth. Black pepper and cumin lead it, toasted lentils give it body, and it is deliberately not sambar powder — the two share a shelf and answer different questions.
2 versionsColombo powder
The curry powder of Guadeloupe and Martinique, brought by Tamil indentured labourers in the nineteenth century and reshaped by what the islands grew. Toasted rice gives it body, and the result is recognisably South Indian and recognisably not.
2 versionsQuatre-épices
The French savoury blend for charcuterie: pepper leading, with three of cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon behind it. The name counts the spices and does not name them, and no two versions agree on which four.
2 versionsNaming noteVadouvan
A Franco-Tamil blend from Pondicherry built on cooked and dried shallot and garlic rather than on seeds, with curry leaf, cumin, fenugreek and mustard seasoning them. Softer, sweeter and more savoury than any curry powder, and made by a method rather than by a formula.
2 versionsBumbu
Indonesian for seasoning, and the name of a family of wet foundation pastes rather than of one blend. Three bumbu dasar are standard and named by colour — red, white and yellow — and a dish is built by frying one of them in oil before anything else goes in the pan.
3 versionsNaming noteFines herbes
The French quartet of parsley, chives, tarragon and chervil, chopped fresh in equal parts and added at the very end of cooking. Unusually for a blend the four are agreed — and unusually, it is not a dry mixture at all.
2 versionsRanch seasoning
A dry American mixture of buttermilk powder, dried herbs and dried allium, invented on a Californian ranch in the 1950s. It is the base of ranch dressing rather than the dressing itself, and the distinction matters because the two are sold under nearly the same name.
2 versionsNaming noteThai curry paste
The pounded wet paste at the base of a Thai curry, and a family rather than one mixture: green from fresh chillies and the hottest, red from dried ones, yellow with turmeric and the dry spices that came with foreign trade.
3 versionsBouquet garni
A tied bundle of hardy herbs simmered whole in a stock, soup or braise and removed before serving. Bay, thyme and parsley stalks are the constant; everything else is regional, and the binding is not decoration.
3 versionsMulling spice
The whole-spice mixture infused into hot wine, cider or juice across northern Europe in winter. Cinnamon, cloves, star anise and citrus peel are the constant; everything is whole, because the drink is strained rather than stirred.
3 versionsFurikake
The Japanese dry condiment sprinkled over rice at the table — seaweed, sesame, salt and sugar as the base, with dried fish, egg, shiso or vegetable defining the type. A category rather than a formula, and applied after cooking rather than during it.
3 versionsGingerbread spice
The northern European baking blend for gingerbread, Lebkuchen, speculaas and pepparkakor. Cinnamon-led rather than ginger-led despite the English name, and distinguished from mixed spice by anise, coriander and a much heavier hand.
3 versionsMontreal steak seasoning
A coarse cracked rub of black pepper, coriander seed, dried garlic and salt, used on grilled beef. Deliberately not ground, because the texture is the crust, and deliberately without sugar, because sugar burns at steak heat.
2 versionsNaming noteShawarma spice
A warm, earthy rub for meat cooked on a vertical spit, built on cumin, coriander and paprika with a sweet-spice element that distinguishes it from a plain grill seasoning. A commercial blend over a family of regional practices rather than a single traditional recipe.
2 versionsShichimi togarashi
Seven flavours, and heat is only one of them. Citrus peel and seaweed do as much work as the chilli, and the numbness from sanshō is a distinct sensation the name does not mention.
2 versionsTaco seasoning
A North American packaged seasoning for minced-beef tacos, built on chilli, cumin, paprika and dried alliums. It is a mid-twentieth-century convenience product rather than a Mexican ingredient, and the commercial version contains thickeners that a home blend does not.
2 versionsTandoori masala
A marinade blend rather than a rub, and one where the colour has a longer history than the recipe. The red is traditionally Kashmiri chilli; in most commercial versions and restaurant kitchens it is food colouring.
2 versionsZa'atar
A Levantine blend of dried wild thyme or oregano, toasted sesame seeds and sumac, with salt. The word also names the herb itself, which is a recurring source of confusion in English-language recipes.
2 versions