A mix so unique, it has to be Greek! Consider this your passport to the Mediterranean.
For the printable recipe click here.
When you wish you could escape to the Greek Isles . . .
. . . But schedule and budget don't support your dreams, do it with your taste buds!
A good Greek seasoning blend is your ticket to a Greek food-cation, full of authentic Greek flavor.
Will you use it for gyro? Souvlaki? Moussaka? Greek Slow Cooker Chicken? The villages and vistas you explore through Greek dishes are completely up to you! What will be your favorite ways to escape?
Homemade Greek Seasoning Blend
This homemade Greek seasoning recipe is a great one to have in your file for adding a quick punch of Greek-inspired flavor to any recipe.
Some people ask if Greek spice blend is the same as Italian seasoning. The quick answer is no.
A mixture of warm spices, herbs, and alliums, our Greek seasoning blend has an ingredient list that sounds all wrong, but turns out so right.
Herbaceous rosemary, dill, oregano, basil, and parsley play surprisingly well with warming allspice, cloves, and cinnamon. Onion powder, garlic powder, and just a smidge of rushed red pepper flakes tie it all together.
If all of this sounds completely new to you, and you've never experienced what Greek spices can do to a simple tomato sauce, you are in for a treat.
Of course you could rely on store-bought blends, but making your own spice blends allows you to do a little fine tuning. And we think this recipe is the perfect mix of Mediterranean flavors found in Greek cooking.
That's the grind
While this easy recipe has a rather long ingredient list, most of the simple spices are likely already in your spice cabinet. And the instructions are quite simple: combine all ingredients.
As with all of our homemade seasoning blends, you will get the finest texture and most thorough blend with an electric spice grinder, aka a repurposed coffee grinder. You will probably want to have a dedicated grinder just for spices, and potentially even one for savory combos and one for sweet (so your pumpkin pie doesn't end up tasting like garlic).
Alternatively, you could grind it all up with a mortar and pestle, which is admittedly way more baller, but unlikely to achieve the uniformity of the spice grinder.
If using a spice grinder, I like to place the coarser, bulkier items--like allspice berries, cloves, and dried rosemary--in first for best results. Things like dried dill and oregano would be in the next wave, followed by the pre-ground items like cinnamon, garlic, and onion powder. This layering just helps make sure the items that need the greatest contact with the blade are right there, ready to be powdered. To make it easy, our simple recipe lists the ingredients in the order I would load them into the grinder.
Sometimes I will wait and mix the garlic and onion powder in after I've transferred the rest of the mix to a small bowl. That way my grinder can more easily go between sweet and savory spice blends without the risk of sweet blends picking up too much savory flavor.
Of course, I try to wipe my grinder out with a slightly damp paper towel after use, or even do a "cleaning grind" with a tablespoon or two of kosher salt in between grindings, but sometimes savory flavor persists.
Mediterranean flair
When you think of Mediterranean dishes, perhaps you think Italian, French, Spanish, Moroccan, Turkish, Tunisian, or Israeli.
So where do Greek flavors fit in?
In general, Greek cuisine shares heavily with Turkish and Israeli. While dishes like hummus or baba ganoush have regional spellings, variations in ingredients, and sometimes altogether different names, there is a lot of overlap on some of our favorites.
Unlike a typical Italian tomato sauce, Greek tomato sauces often pull in more of the warming spices found savory dishes across Africa and the Middle East.
The perfect blend of flavors found in our easy Greek seasoning blend is amazing in tomato sauce, on your favorite vegetables roasted with a little olive oil, on white fish or chicken breast, or on any of your favorite Greek-inspired dishes. We hope the unique blend of herbs and spices in this homemade Greek seasoning mix will be a great way for you to escape to Greece, one bite at a time!
Here's what you'll need:
2 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp whole allspice berries
5 whole cloves
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp dried dill
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp parsley
1 tsp dried basil
2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 T onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
Here's what you'll do:
Combine all ingredients in the order listed using a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Store the mixture in a dark place at room temperature in an airtight container, such as a small mason jar or recycled spice jar.
For the printable recipe click here.
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