10 Must Have Spices for the Prepared Kitchen

I’m sitting at my desk looking at the menu I have written out for the week. Tomorrow night’s dinner is Slow Cooker Lemon Garlic Chicken. This just makes me salivate thinking about it.

I want you to take a moment to ponder what would you think of just “Slow Cooker Chicken.” Does that just make you ready to hop on a plane and come over for dinner tomorrow night?

I wouldn’t get too excited about just “Slow Cooker Chicken.” It’s the seasonings of lemon and garlic that make it sound tantalizing!

Now imagine your favorite meal without any spices. Not your favorite meal anymore, huh?

While most people, rightly, start their food storage journey out by purchasing bulk items like rice, beans, and pastas, many of those same people might not think about the spices they need to prepare those items not just to sustain them, but to make it palatable.

This is especially important for children! So I don’t know about your children, but I have a couple of finicky eaters. There are meals they don’t want to eat even if they were well prepared. If I sat un-spiced tomato sauce over pasta in front of them, I’m guessing it would still be there an hour later.

Spices make life much more delicious! So let’s talk about ten must-have spices.

1.) Salt and Pepper – These two go together like, well salt and pepper, so they get to share their entry. If you can get no other spices, purchase these in bulk. You’ll get the best prices and quality through Azure Standard.

2.) Chili Powder – Now my husband grew up in Texas, so not having this in the house is like trying to restrict his breathing. It just isn’t going to happen. This is fairly necessary for any Mexican meal along with other of our family favorites like chili. Fortunately for us all, I can get really good prices on this through Azure Standard.

3.) Cinnamon – We go through a lot of cinnamon in our house because we make our own granola. Each batch of granola calls for 1/4 C of cinnamon powder. I let it run out once, and let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.

4.) Cumin – We use cumin in most of our Mexican recipes, but it’s also an ingredient in our taco seasoning mix.

5.) Oregano – This is a must of any Italian dish that you wish to make. I also use it in a lot of my stews and sometimes in my homemade broth.

6.) Basil – I use this in almost identical quantities as I do Oregano and for the same purposes. I love me some spaghetti sauce, but not without basil!

7.) Onion Powder – There are very few savory menu items that I don’t use onion powder in, even if it’s just used in my homemade taco seasoning mix.

8.) Garlic Powder – I couldn’t make tomorrow’s dinner without my garlic powder

9.) Cloves – I use cloves a lot in seasonal baking, but if I were missing it, pumpkin pie and sweet potato casserole just wouldn’t be the same!

10.) Ginger – I use this in both sweet and savory dishes as well as cookies!

There were more spices I wanted to list like Paprika, Parsley, Curry Powder and others. We use so many spices in our house! The point is to make sure that you are purchasing these spices for your Prepared Kitchen.

What other spices would you include?