How to: Ultimate Chinese Five Spice | Marion's Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What is the best way to use Chinese five spice? ›

It's well-known for its use in Chinese cuisine where it's often incorporated into daily cooking, but it's also used in other Asian, Western Indian, and Arabic cuisines as well. One of its best uses is as a spice rub or marinade for fatty meats like pork, duck, or goose.

You'll often find it in Chinese marinades and dry rubs, like in our Roasted Chicken with Sticky Rice, one of Sarah's absolute favorite dishes growing up! It also plays a large role in our Cantonese Roast Pork Belly. It can also really enhance fried chicken, roast duck, and ribs.

In the culinary arts, five spice (also known as Chinese five spice) is a blend of ground spices used in Chinese and Vietnamese cooking.

The warm, spicy-sweet flavor of allspice is very similar to that of five-spice powder, a blend of cinnamon, star anise, fennel, cloves, and ginger or pepper. Use equal parts of five-spice powder in place of the ground allspice called for in a recipe—it's great for both savory and sweet applications.

While you're unlikely to eat enough Chinese 5 Spice to derive great nutritional benefits from it, the spices included in this mix are rich in antioxidants and are also a terrific source of minerals such as copper, iron, and manganese.

Be careful, shichimi togarashi is very different to Chinese five spice which is very aromatic and includes different spices like cinnamon and aniseed; it isn't spicy like Japanese seven spice.

Storage: McCormick Culinary® Chinese Five Spice has a shelf life of 1,080 days when tightly closed and stored in a cool, dry place to protect against flavor loss and moisture. Avoid exposure to heat, humidity, direct sunlight and fluorescent light to maintain flavor and color.

The Thai equivalent of the Chinese five spice or the Indian garam masala, this is an all-purpose seasoning blend which is used in Thai style stir fries to bring out the full flavour of the food.

Popular herbs like ginger, garlic, scallions, star anise, cinnamon, and Sichuan peppercorns are frequently used in Chinese cooking because of their therapeutic properties, in addition to their ability to improve the flavour, aroma, and texture of food.

It is like an upgrade version of Five Spices, meaning it has a deeper, profound flavor profile. Thirteen Spices has similar function as Five Spices, but it works better to remove stronger odor from meat such as lamb or deer, or for a cuisine that requires stronger seasonings e.g. a Sichuan spicy hot pot.

How to use Chinese 5 spices in cooking? ›

Warm, sweet, and wondrous, Chinese five spice is a favorite for barbecue, braised dishes, roasted veggies, quick stir fries, noodle dishes, and even desserts. This blend creates a shortcut into authentic Chinese flavors, but you'll soon find yourself fusing it into all types of cooking.

Five spice is a blend of star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorns and fennel seeds. If you don't have Sichuan peppercorns to hand, you could substitute them for black peppercorns – the flavour will still be nice, although it won't have the same heat.

The blend generally consists of five spices - star anise, fennel, cinnamon (cassia), Sichuan pepper, and clove. The blend should be balanced, but many versions are dominated by the flavor of licorice because of the heavy handed use of star anise and fennel.

Whilst you're never going to get the classic flavour that Chinese 5 spice provides with a substitute, there are some seasonings that come pretty close. Star anise, allspice, garam masala, sichuan peppercorns and cinnamon sticks are all worthy replacements – but the real stuff is always best!

Five-spice powder (Chinese: 五香粉; pinyin: wǔxiāng fěn) is a spice mixture of five or more spices used predominantly in almost all branches of Chinese cuisine.

I use both garam masala and Chinese five-spice powder and they both are different, used for vastly different cuisines. The basic recipe for five powder includes cinnamon, cloves, fennel, star anise and Szechuan peppercorns ( you can call it the Chinese version of garam masala, but it is still very different).

The Chinese 5 spice with cinnamon, star anise, fennel, is rich with antioxidants and able to act as immunity booster as the spice contains anti-inflammation, anti-fungal, and anti-infection property.

To start with, Chinese five spice is Chinese in origin. Seven spice powder is Japanese, and also called shichimi togarashi. Unlike Five Spice, Seven spice's foundation is comprised of chilis, dried orange peel, sesame seed, dried ginger, and seaweed, as well as Sichuan peppercorns.

Chinese Five Spice is an intense spice blend that adds an Asian flavor to meat and poultry dishes. Try with spice cakes, muffins, or cookies. For an interesting twist, add to seafood batters or your favorite pumpkin pie recipe. Contains cinnamon, anise seed, cloves, ginger, and fennel.

I was surprised how similar the Indian spice blend Garam Masala is to Chinese 5-Spice. Both contain fennel, cinnamon and cloves but Garam Masala includes carraway seeds and cardamom. And is missing the star anise. Given they are so similar just substitute 1:1.

What does Chinese five spice smell like? ›

Our Chinese Five-Spice is a deep brown-red powder with a sweetly pungent fragrance, predominantly from star anise. It's spicy and tangy; use sparingly.

Unlike the name suggests, the salt and pepper spice mix usually consists of far more than just salt and pepper. It's often a mix of salt, white pepper/Sichuan pepper, Chinese 5 spice, MSG, and sugar.