Print This Page

Five Spice Powder - Add the Authentic Taste
of China and Asia to Your Home Cooking

This is a lighter Chinese five spice powder which makes it suitable for use in your desserts as well as main courses. Easy-to-make, and using traditional ingredients, it will add fresh authentic flavours and mouthwatering aromas to your home cooked Asian dishes. (See the bottom of the page for links to more of my recipes)

Ingredients: (makes 4-5 tablespoons)

2 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns (or black peppercorns)
4 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp whole cloves
2 x 3 inch pieces of cinnamon
3-4 whole star anise

tbsp = tablespoon
tsp = teaspoon

Directions:

• Break up the star anise and cinnamon

• Finely grind these cinnamon and anise pieces along with the cloves, fennel seeds and peppercorns

• Finally, sieve into a bowl and combine thoroughly
  
  

Store your five spice in an airtight jar out of direct sunlight. Use within 3 months.

Note: To extract even more flavours from the ingredients, dry toasting them prior to cooling and grinding is something I recommend. It only takes a few minutes and is well worth doing.

Click here for tips and photos on toasting and grinding. (Link opens in new window)

Ingredient Note: Whilst for maximum flavour when making your blends, I advise using whole ingredients where you can. Sometimes this may not be practical. In these cases it's perfectly fine to use pre-ground powders. If you do use pre-ground, reduce the amount the recipe says by half. So instead of 4 teaspoons of fennel seeds you use 2 teaspoons of pre-ground fennel. Reduce any others you don't have whole by half as well and stir in with any other powders when making.

Here's a video of how I made this Chinese spice classic. The quantities may be slightly different but the process is exactly the same. If you enjoyed it, you can click the subscribe button in the bottom right corner...

A Little Info About This Authentic Blend

Five Spice

Chinese 5 spice is traditionally made up of star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, cassia-cinnamon, cloves and fennel.

Apparently chosen by ancient Chinese philosophers... 

...These ingredients were chosen as they encompass our five taste sensations: Pungent, bitter, salty, sweet and sour

Note: If you can't get hold of Sichuan peppercorns, black peppercorns make an acceptable substitute.

After Making Your Chinese Five Spice Powder You May Like to Try...

Homemade Herbes de Provence - The Classic French Herb Blend

Seasoning Salt - A Flavourful Mix of Sea Salt and Herbs and Spices

Spice powder Recipes - A Collection of Super Easy-to- Make Blends For Fab Cooking

Return to Seasoning Mix

Return to Home

ShareFacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditWhatsAppMessenger