Know Your Kid-Friendly Spices

Cooking is a necessity that can often feel like a burden, but cooking can also be a creative outlet. Experimenting with your spices can be a great way to make cooking more fun for Mom or Dad while incorporating a few sneaky health benefits for the whole family! To help, we’ve put together a list of some kid-friendly spices that you can play with in your cooking.

Garlic Powder – Fresh garlic cloves add a delicious, rich flavor to any dish, but when time is of the essence, garlic powder is a great stand-in spice. Garlic is, of course, a staple in any Italian dish, but it is also a great addition to any recipe where you are sautéing something. If you’re sautéing in olive oil, add a few dashes of garlic powder.

Be aware! Too much garlic is a strong taste that can really turn a dish south, so be conservative when adding garlic. Start little, and if everyone loves it, add a little more next time. Garlic comes with health benefits like lowering blood pressure and giving a boost to the immune system.

Onion Powder – Similar to garlic, a fresh onion always provides the richest flavor, but chopping onions is a chore, and it can be discouraging to chop a fresh onion only to find that it is more bitter or harsh than you hoped. Onion powder is a great alternative to get a sweeter onion flavor without the intensity of a fresh onion. You also forego the texture of fresh onions that some find undesirable.

Because onion powder emulates a sweeter onion, you can add more than the amount of garlic you use. Again, this is a spice of preference, so start small and increase to see where your ideal onion level lies.

Paprika – This is a very mild spice that many people have a hard time discerning. Paprika comes from sweet red peppers, and it highlights natural sweetness in a dish. It also has a strength to it that makes you feel like you’re eating a heartier meal. Be sure to notice when buying this spice that there is a huge difference between regular paprika and smoked paprika. Smoked paprika adds a very strong bacon-y flavor, whereas regular paprika affects the flavor of a dish more subtly.

Turmeric - This spice has a sneaky way of mimicking the flavors of cheese—complete with the yellow color! If you imagine the aftertaste a good hard parmesan leaves in your mouth, Turmeric does that to a dish. However, if you want something to taste cheesy, you have to combine turmeric with salt.

Unlike paprika, turmeric is VERY strong. Add too much turmeric and your dish can taste a little metallic. Less is more for turmeric, which is nice because it tends to be a little more pricey than other spices. A nice bonus of turmeric is that it has a lot of sneaky health benefits, including being a natural teeth whitener.

Chili Powder – When you want a dish to be a little spicy without your mouth feeling like it’s on fire, chili powder is a great spice to use.

Chili powder adds a sweeter spiciness than something like cayenne. Unlike cayenne, which adds heat without changing the flavor much, chili powder alters the flavor considerably giving a little smoky taste to your dish. If you want spicy heat while keeping the same flavor, sub out chili powder for cayenne. With cayenne, start very light and add more once you’ve established your family’s spicy-tolerance (the stuff is intense!) Both chili powder and cayenne are great metabolism boosters.

Salt – It’s almost silly to put salt on this list, but some folks shy away from salt because salt, especially in the United States, is often painted in a bad light. However, if you’re cooking most things from scratch, it’s likely that you’re cutting way back on your salt intake without even knowing it. Our bodies do need iodine, which is found in sea salt (unfortunately, not in that fancy Himalayan salt), so don’t be afraid to add a little salt to your homemade masterpieces.

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