What condiments do you keep in stock? (Or sauces or pastes or a rose by any other name) For what cuisines and/or dishes?

[Saregama]

Similar to the how many types of pasta thread.

We’ve got various favorite condiment threads, and the share-your-fridge and pantry / cabinet threads that reveal why we are so comfortable among friends here

So let’s share our condiment “stocking” (no use of hoarding please, this is a safe space!).

Do you sort / store them by cuisine / cultural groupings?

What goes in the fridge vs the cabinet (even if contrary to guidance)?

What do you have multiple types of, because, well, you do?
What do you use the different types for, if you differentiate ?

And what about the inverse – what do you never or rarely stock?

[Saregama]

I tend to add condiments as I explore cuisines, get more comfortable cooking them, and learn more about specific ingredients.

Hot sauces of course are an easy start.

• Frank’s
• A couple of types of El Yucateco, and another couple along those lines
• A host of Asian & other chilli sauces & oils: sriracha, a few Sichuan bean sauces, several types of chilli oils & crisps – both Asian and non-Asian
• Chilli pastes including Calabrian and harissa.

The Asian chilli oils & pastes are in the pantry, the rest in the fridge.

“Most” of a type after that are vinegars (pantry not fridge):

• Red wine x 2 types
• Cider
• Champagne
• Rice
• Sherry
• White wine
• Chinese black / chinkiang
• Plain old white
• Balsamic

Salts:

• “regular” iodized table salt
• sea salt
• himalayan pink salt
• Indian kala namak / sanchal
• various finishing salts – truffle, porcini, regional ones

Oils:

• Grapeseed, sunflower, avocado, olive - for cooking
• Extra virgin olive - dressing
• Toasted sesame
• Truffle
• Occasionally specific nut oils for dressings

Mustards, even though I don’t like mustard itself, but it’s necessary for specific dishes / uses:

• Indian / Bengali
• Dijon
• Whole grain
• Coleman’s

My widest stock of other condiments is broadly Asian:

• Chinese: soy sauce (3 kinds), oyster, hoisin, mushroom stirfry, sesame paste, black beans, chicken bouillon powder / msg, bbq seasoning, rice wine
• Vietnamese: fish sauce (3 kinds, thank heavens 2 bottles are almost done)
• Japanese: Mirin, ponzu, seasoned rice vinegar, yuzu kosho, yuzu hot sauce, miso, dashi powder, furikake
• Thai: various curry pastes, satay sauce
• Korean: gochujang, doenjang, kimchi (also kimchi paste in the freezer)
• Indian: ginger garlic paste, tamarind paste, tamarind chutney, pickles (6-8 types), bhel chutney, pani puri paste, red chilli garlic chutney

Assorted:

• Fridge: zhoug, chimichurri, toum, jam (2-3 types), mayo, aioli
• Pantry: molasses, liquid smoke, pomegranate molasses, date syrup

[Phoenikia]

My condiments take up 2/3 of my fridge.

I always have mayo, mustard (also not a fan but my dining companions are. French’s yellow, Dijon, sometimes other German or Canadian mustard), a dozen different hot sauces, oils or chili pastes.

Red pepper jelly, mint jelly, and lingonberry sauce.

I store my soy sauce and sesame oils in the fridge.

Red Curry paste, green curry paste.
Sometimes Jerk seasoning but not lately. Piri Piri oil.

I have capers and 2 types of cucumber pickles on hand.

Mango chutney and often another chutney. Maple syrup. HP, Worcestershire

I have a dozen small condiments and tapenades from an amazing advent calendar last year. I’m not good at using things that I didn’t buy for myself.

I also have a jar of unopened arugula pesto from Eataly that’s been in my fridge for 18 months.

Condiments I don’t buy: Branston pickle, Piccalilli, Ranch, Miracle Whip, and Salad Cream.

[linguafood (Natascha)]

(post deleted by author)

[eleeper (Evelyn C. Leeper)]

You folks all have enormous kitchens. (The vinegars alone would occupy more than 10% of my food storage space.) If we’re counting condiments, not individual spices, for hot sauce, we have Cholula and Sriracha. For vinegar, we have cider, balsamic, and rice (and white, but that’s for cleaning). There’s ketchup, brown mustard, Worcestershire sauce, steak sauce, and Miracle Whip. Does salsa count? I think that’s about it. (I don’t think of capers, pickles, or olives as condiments, or maple syrup.)

[linguafood (Natascha)]

@eleeper

You folks all have enormous kitchens.

Clearly, we do. Some earlier threads on the topic

Hot sauces: what are you eating now? How many is too many?

Let’s hear it folks… What are you currently into and how many sauces are in your “line up?” I will take a pic soon. I think I might have to thin down my selection…or maybe not I seem to accumulate them and then even after consuming them at home and “donating” them to the community fridges at work, I still seem to have too many. I hope we can get some new ideas from this thread.

Favorite neutral cooking oils

Normally I cook with olive oil or canola oil, depending on the cuisine/recipe. My cooking is primarily California-style, with some Italian occasionally. But I recently read that canola isn’t a good one to use because it is so highly processed. Is there another reasonably priced oil that you like? What about avocado oil? I’ve seen that in the stores. I’m using these for sauteeing, and I don’t do any super high temp or deep frying. There is an overwhelming amount of info online, but I trust my fel…

Your Fav Oils - What Do You Always Have/Like/Use?

I try to keep as few on hand as possible, but here are my killers… California Olive Ranch EVOO 100% CA - I use this for almost everything (except traditional frying). Even when recipes call for neutral oil, the dish is always better with this stuff. Colavita Canola - Pan frying. I don’t deep fry, but this works/tastes great for the shallow frying I do. Sesame - Don’t buy/stock it… but have seeds on hand that I toast and Vitamix with EVOO when I need it. Others I like but rarely have on hand… …

Your Fav Vinegars - What Do You Always Have/Like/Use?

Here we go again… (c; Like oils, I try to keep as few on hand as possible, but my likes are… Heinz Distilled - Used alot, mostly with sugars and citrus in asian dishes and sauces, plus my fav Chinese chicken salad. Colavita Prosseco Wine - Dressings and sauces where I want a bit more sparkle, sweetness, and complexity. Marukan Seasoned Rice Vinegar - Super versatile. Sauces and dressings where I want a tangier, deeper flavor. I’ll also use it as a replacement for sherry vinegar with a pinch o…

Ketchups and Mustards and any other condiments you love

[image][image]I saw these 2 brands of ketchup and was intrigued. Has anybody tried either? I thought maybe I’d start an all purpose condiments thread.

Mayonnaise

Recommend me a good one. I have access to lots of choices including TJ and Aldi, Japanese, (tried Kewpie, et al), Latin, etc. I’ve been using Dukes for years but I’m hoping there’s something better. Whatcha got?

BBQ Sauces - Supermarket favorites and beyond?

What raises my transplanted Southern eyebrow is a commercial product that uses a prepared product like Worcestershire sauce. Vinegar, molasses, oily fish, tamarind, allium, … sure. Great Grandma Margaret’s BBQ sauce at a farmers market with Worcestershire sauce in it, sure. If Kraft decided to use the Lee & Perrins brand on a line of barbecue sauce and cross promote, okay. Otherwise, at commercial scale, I don’t see anything to be proud of by using and citing Worcestershire sauce, and I’d wonde…

Salsas…

I make a bunch of them (fresh/roasted, tomato/tomatillo. dry/fresh chiles, etc.), but my fav when I can actually get sweet, ripe, fresh tomatoes is totally fresh with diced tomatoes/white onion/cilantro/jalapeno/garlic/lime juice. Great with chips, tacos, tostadas, and in guac. So what is your favorite salsa, and where/how do you use it?

How do you use "Gourmet" salt for cooking and finishing?

How do you use “gourmet” salt for cooking and finishing? I have a thing for “gourmet” salt and when I see them I have to resist my urge to buy them. To me, these salts have a more nuanced flavor compared to good old table salt. So I mostly use them for finishing dishes where the flavor of the salt stands out more. There are many “gourmet” salt- fleur de sel, sel gris, Cyprus flake, maldon, Himalayan, Alaea, Hawaiian black, Peruvian pink, kala namak, etc. The question for the group is, do yo…

And one for homemade:

What are your all-time favorite homemade condiments / dipping sauces / accoutrements?

Inspired by this thread, what are your favorite homemade condiments / sauces? Besides workhorses like mayo and tartar sauce, what are some of your creations you would eat a shoe with? My candidates in no particular order: chimichurri Peruvian green sauce (with added bird peppers cuz we like it hawttt) nuoc cham nam jim talay / jaew hollandaise & béarnaise flavored mayo (the possibilities are endless) anchoiade zhoug toum Let’s get saucy!

[Phoenikia]

@eleeper

don’t think of capers, pickles, or olives as condiments

depends on how one uses pickles, and depends on how one defines condiment!

Are pickles a side or a condiment?

Maple syrup is the second photo in this Wiki entry

I mostly use maple syrup in vegetable or pork dishes, so it’s more of a condiment in my house. I don’t use it for sweets.

List of condiments

[Saregama]

Nope, apartment-sized kitchen and regular size fridge.

Depends on what you store where and how, I guess.

Tall vinegars and fish sauce are under the sink. The rest are between pantry cupboard and fridge.

If I don’t see it, I won’t use it.

Also depends on what kind of interest one has in cooking, and what range of cuisines one explores at home. You really can’t get the right results in many cuisines without specific items, so if you choose to cook them, your pantry has to grow.

And of course this does not include spices. Spice organization has been discussed more specifically.

[ChristinaM (Hungry in Asheville, NC (still plenty to offer tourists post Hurricane))]

You’ll be sorry you asked…

Sauces, Pastes, and Condiments

• Fridge:

  • Fish sauce
  • Anchovy paste
  • Tomato paste
  • Hot bean paste
  • Oyster sauce
  • Hoisin sauce
  • Gochugaru
  • Kikkoman teriyaki sauce
  • Korean soybean paste
  • Duck sauce
  • Chinese sesame sauce
  • Patak’s mild curry spice paste
  • Better than Bouillon (vegetable, chicken, mushroom, beef, caramelized onion)
  • White miso
  • Red miso

• Pantry:

  • General Tso’s stir fry sauce
  • Prik khing curry paste
  • Maggi
  • Braggs amino acids
  • Kecap Manis
  • Filipino spiced sugarcane vinegar
  • Red Chinese vinegar
  • Dark and light soy sauces
  • Zinjiang vinegar
  • Shaoxing cooking wine
  • A1 sauce

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Hot Sauces and Spicy Condiments

• Fridge:

  • Sriracha
  • Harissa
  • Chili garlic sauce
  • Avocado serrano hot sauce
  • Extra hot horseradish
  • Tabasco (regular and smoked)
  • Firewalker extra hot sauce
  • Ghost Dog hot sauce
  • Scotch bonnet hot sauce
  • Super Soft smoked habanero and serrano hot sauce
  • Chipotle hot sauce
  • Oh Yeah! hot sauce
  • Frank’s hot sauce
  • Italian Casa Farrelli hot sauce
  • Peri-Peri sauce
  • Texas Pete pickled pepper sauce
  • Pickapeppa sauce
  • Zhug

• Pantry:

  • Peppercorn chili oil
  • Salsa matcha
  • Aji amarillo
  • Firewalker mango blaze hot sauce
  • Firewalker smokejumper chipotle hot sauce
  • Better Times strawberry jalapeño hot sauce
  • Nopal green habanero pepper sauce

---

Pickled or Preserved Items

• Fridge:

  • Pickled ginger
  • Salted black beans
  • Kalamata olives
  • Stuffed sweet pickled picante peppers
  • Capers
  • Sweet relish
  • Sliced pickled beets
  • Golden pepperoncini
  • Banana pepper rings
  • Sweet cherry peppers
  • Claussen dill pickle spears
  • Mixed Indian pickle in oil
  • Sauerkraut
  • Kimchi
  • Ploughman’s pickle

• Pantry:

  • Chinese pickled cow pea beans in chili oil
  • Ramp-infused vinegar

---

Dressings, Oils, and Fats

• Fridge:

  • Poppy seed dressing
  • Dijon mustard
  • Yellow mustard
  • Honey mustard
  • Salsa ranch, French, Thousand Island, peach balsamic dressings
  • Walnut oil
  • Pistachio oil
  • Ghee, schmaltz, bacon grease
  • Oat milk “butter”
  • Salted butter
  • Duke’s mayo
  • sour cream

• Pantry:

  • Canola oil
  • Toasted sesame oil

---

Sweet Spreads, Syrups, and Jams

• Fridge:

  • Pumpkin butter
  • Peach jam
  • Lemon curd
  • Homemade wineberry jam
  • Black raspberry jelly
  • Maple syrup
  • Hot fudge
  • Caramel sauce
  • Chocolate syrup
  • Strawberry syrup
  • Assorted decorating icing

• Pantry:

  • Tart cherry fruit spread
  • Light agave syrup
  • Nutella
  • Toasted marshmallow, peppermint, and brown butter toffee coffee syrups
  • Honey with honeycomb
  • Various baking extracts

---

Miscellaneous

• Fridge:

  • Sun-dried tomato halves
  • Cocktail cherries
  • Lemon pesto sauce
  • Medium and mild salsas
  • Salsa especial medium
  • Peeled garlic cloves
  • Bottled lemon juice (for canning)

• Pantry:

  • Molasses and blackstrap molasses
  • Liquid smoke
  • Corn syrup
  • Aged balsamic
  • Sherry vinegar
  • Balsamic vinegar (regular and glaze)
  • Honey
  • Almond and peanut butters
  • A shit-ton of homemade jams

---

If I could fit more, I would. #sorrynotsorry

Fun fact: I took a full random inventory and pasted it into Chat GPT to have it organized. Pretty useful!

I didn’t bother with the freezer, which has a few randoms in it, like opened curry pastes.

[Meekah]

@Phoenikia

My condiments take up 2/3 of my fridge.

Only 2/3? My fridge would be an echo chamber without all those jars and bottles. It’s my worst kitchen sin. Periodically I do a merciless cull - but of course I’ve already bought replacements by that time.

[stan]

i just added pickled hot & sweet jalapenos to my stock.

[CaitlinM]

@Saregama

Coleman’s

Donning my pedantic hat: It’s Colman’s. (A tiny minority of Americans know it doesn’t have an ‘e’, in my experience, but it’s a family name so I’m attuned to it. and hence no one in that family line buys any other dry mustard powder.)