Homemade Old Bay Seasoning
About this Recipe
When you must, make your own! The Dill Pickle Soup Recipe we were making called for Old Bay Seasoning and as we didn’t have that in the spice drawer we did a quick recipe search and found a homemade recipe that we made our own variation of. Most people from Maryland know about Old Bay seasoning, but if you're not from Maryland you may not have heard of it. This is a favorite seasoning that's usually used for seafood and fish, but there are other homemade meals that it can be used in too. The first blend of these spices were created by Gustav Brunn a German refugee who moved to Maryland in 1939. The first seasoning was created with 18 spices and was named after a shipping line. It became more popular as time went on and then was bought by major spice company McCormick & Company and they continue to manufacture it close to Baltimore, Maryland but now it's offered all over the United States and in Canada too. The spice blend is the same as it was 75 years ago and people still love to use it on crab or fish. There are also beer, chips, cheese, bloody Mary, chicken wings, bread, popcorn and even ice cream flavors with this seasoning in them. So you don't just have to use it for seafood and you can use it for pretty much any other easy dinner ideas. Our dill pickle soup has some of this seasoning in it. If you can't find Old Bay brand spice near you and you need it for a recipe, you can make some yourself. The official ingredients on the package of Old Bay include red pepper, celery salt, salt, black pepper and paprika spice. There's also a listing for "spices" on the ingredients list which makes it unclear exactly which spices these are.
Grandmother's TIPS for Old Bay Seasoning Recipe:
1. We did not have bay leaf powder, but we did have bay leaves so we ground them until they were a fine powder and used them in the recipe.
2. Label with a cute sticker and put into a nice small jar. This makes for a great holiday or housewarming food gift. A jar of this homemade seasoning could also be a great gift for someone who loves to cook.
Ingredients
Makes 1/4 cup of seasoning:
1 Tablespoon bay leaf power
1 Tablespoon celery salt
1/2 Tablespoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon allspice
Directions
1. Mix all spices together into an airtight jar.
2. Label and use in recipes that need them.
3. Now when a recipe calls for Old Bay Seasoning you have your own spice jar filled and ready to go!.
ENJOY!
Return to this Homemade Old Bay Seasoning recipe or check out more recipes at Grandmother's Kitchen
This spice mix has a really great flavor and aroma perfect for seasoning any meat or even vegetables. Besides the ingredients listed on the can of Old Bay spices, we added in some bay leaf powder, dry mustard, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and allspice. So as you can see it offers a really well-rounded flavor with many layers to it.
If you've never tried this seasoning before it's described as being sweet, spicy and savory all at once. As you're making the seasoning mix, imagine the flavors of each of the spices as you're adding them into the mixture and where they came from.
The spice trade opened the world up to a variety of wonderful flavors. The explorers Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus and others went to Asia and Northeast Africa to get these spices and bring them back to Europe so that people could enjoy the incredible flavors. Many spices we use today still come from these countries, but now they are also grown and harvested in other parts of the world too. When you use the spices in your homemade meals and easy dinner ideas, as you're tasting your food, imagine where each of the spices comes from and all of the care and time it took to grow the plants and harvest them then process them into powders.
One of the spices that is worth grinding on your own is nutmeg. When you buy nutmeg, try and find a whole piece of it and then take a fine cheese grater or a special spice grater and grate it yourself. You'll find that the flavor of it is so much more intense and adds so much to any mixture or recipe you're adding it to.
Also, if you don't have bay leaf powder, there's no need to buy it if you already have whole bay leaves. You can just make the powder yourself by grinding it up in a coffee grinder or your food processor on a fine grind. Enjoy your homemade Old Bay seasoning in whatever you choose to use it in and make a fresh batch whenever you run out.
