Spices for snacks and tea time
Spiced nuts, crisps, fritters, chaat and everything eaten between meals.
Snacks are where spice is often most playful, with crisp, salty, sour and hot flavours coated in seasoning mixes made to eat between meals.
Savoury snacks
Indian chaat uses chaat masala, with black salt, amchur and cumin. Mexican snacks use chilli and lime, as with tajin on fruit. Japanese rice crackers use shichimi and nori, and North American popcorn and chips use paprika, onion, garlic and cheese powder.
Nuts and seeds
Roasted nuts and seeds are coated in spice mixes from many places, such as dukkah in Egypt, masala peanuts in India and chilli-lime peanuts in Mexico.
Tea time
Tea-time snacks, such as samosas, pakoras, scones and biscuits, bring spice to the afternoon. Cardamom biscuits, ginger cake and spiced fritters are typical.
Snacks and tea time on EveryMasala
The spices written up so far, best known first.
🇮🇳 India and 4 moreFennel
The anise-scented seeds and crisp bulb of a Mediterranean perennial herbSeed · Anise and liquorice · Sweet and mellow
🇷🇺 Russia and 4 moreTarragon
A slender perennial herb with anise-scented leaves, prized in French and Middle Eastern cooking.Leaf · Anise and liquorice · Sweet and mellow
🇲🇽 MexicoPineapple sage
A Mexican shrub with leaves that smell of pineapple and flowers that feed hummingbirdsLeaf · Citrus and bright · Sweet and mellow
🇵🇸 Palestine and 4 moreGreek sage
A hairy Mediterranean shrub with pink flowers and edible fruit galls.Leaf · Herbal and green · Sweet and mellow
🇮🇱 IsraelNufar basil
A sweet basil variety bred in Israel to resist a deadly fungal wilt disease.Leaf · Sweet and mellow
🇮🇳 India and 5 moreFenugreekحلبة (hilba)
The cuboid seed of an annual legume, prized for its bitter warmth and maple aroma.Seed · Bitter · Warm and sweet-spiced
🇰🇷 South Korea and 5 moreKorean mint배초향
An anise-scented Asian mint leaf used in Korean stews and herbal traditionsLeaf · Anise and liquorice · Herbal and green
🇮🇩 Indonesia and 5 morePandan
The fragrant leaf of a sterile screwpine, used to scent rice and desserts across Asia.Leaf · Sweet and mellow · Floral and perfumed
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Pandan: Zuhairali, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Tarragon: KENPEI, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Pineapple sage: Eric Hunt, CC BY 2.5, source
- Greek sage: This file is a work by Ester Inbar ( user:ST or he:user:ST ). More of, Attribution, source
- Fenugreek: Yak, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Korean mint: Dalgial, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Fennel: Elekes Andor, CC BY 4.0, source