#1 Cur­ry

Do we even need to say more? The spice that brings us our favourite mains: cur­ried crab and dumplings, cur­ried chick­en and roti with cur­ried every­thing. Of course, there’s more to the spice than just well, cur­ry! Cur­ried egg paste and roast­ed cau­li­flower with cur­ry are all de­li­cious op­tions for the spice. So need­less to say, it’s num­ber 1 on our list.

#2 Roast­ed Cumin

Roast­ed cumin or, as it is most com­mon­ly known as in Trinidad, geera (the dark one). Geera is not on­ly de­li­cious in cur­ry but, it is de­li­cious for adding in­to Mex­i­can dish­es like chilli, beans and meats for tacos or for Per­sian dish­es. Try adding it to your roast­ed chick­en as well!

#3 Gar­lic Salt

Gar­lic salt has quick­ly sky-rock­et­ed in pop­u­lar­i­ty over the last five years—and for good rea­son! Gar­lic and salt are two in­gre­di­ents that are nec­es­sary in most Trinida­di­an dish­es. The all-pur­pose seaos­ning is great for sprin­kling over fries, roast­ed pota­toes and sea­son­ing meats or ham­burg­ers. This is a def­i­nite pantry sta­ple.

#4 Cin­na­mon

Cin­na­mon is not on­ly great for de­li­cious drinks like ponche de crème (you should try it!) or sor­rel but it is fab­u­lous in ap­ple pie, hot choco­late and bread pud­ding! Get ex­per­i­men­tal with the warm spice by sprin­kling it over your plan­tains, vanil­la ice-cream or by even mak­ing a cin­na­mon tea with it.

#5 Red Pep­per Flakes

We know you can add pep­per sauce to any­thing but some­times, the vine­gar base does not al­ways mesh with every food. Pep­per flakes are very spicy and add the per­fect amount of heat to pas­tas, piz­zas and sal­ads!