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

Cooking Discussions
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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 :joy:

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?

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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
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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.:joy:

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. :joy:

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(post deleted by author)

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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.)

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Clearly, we do. Some earlier threads on the topic :slight_smile:

And one for homemade:

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

Maple syrup is the second photo in this Wiki entry :maple_leaf:

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.

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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.

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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

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.

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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.

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

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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.)

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