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    Home » Store Cupboard Recipes

    Published: May 12, 2021 · Modified: Apr 22, 2022 by Zen

    Quick homemade 5 spice powder recipe

    Learn to make your own homemade 5 spice powder, so you always have the freshest and most powerful spices on hand for extra delicious food!

    A plate of spices used to make Chinese 5 spice powder
    All the spices before grinding/ pounding
    Jump to Recipe
    Jump to:
    • What is 5 spice powder?
    • Why make it yourself
    • How to reduce the spices to a fine powder
    • How to use 5 spice powder?
    • Related recipes
    • Homemade Chinese 5 spice powder

    What is 5 spice powder?

    Also known as 五香粉 (wu Xiang fen), 5 spice powder is a ground mixture of various spices that is used in many Chinese, Vietnamese and even Hawaiian dishes. The number 5 doesn't actually refer to the number of spices in the recipe- some feature 6 or more- but rather the 5 flavours (salty, spicy, bitter, sweet and savoury) or the traditional 5 elements.

    Why make it yourself

    If you're anything like my friends, your first question on seeing this post may be: " WHY make your own 5 spice powder when you can get it in the shop at such a cheap price?" Other than the fact that I like making things from scratch- other DIY culinary ingredients include makgeolli, fermented plum syrup, tangerine-cheong and salted eggs- it's good to make your own spice mixes because:

    1. The spices are fresher so the dishes you cook will be more aromatic. (Old spices lose their taste with time so you need to refresh your spice cupboard and toss old ones out every now and then. 5 spice powder only needs to be used sparingly and isn't the most commonly-used spice, so a bottle usually loses its flavour long before one uses it up.)
    2. You can tailor the mix to your taste- I've given exact proportions for each spice in the instructions below but it's more of a guideline so feel free to fudge the quantities. (I'd be carefully with the cloves though as it's quite a strong spice and can be overpowering.) In fact, you don't even have to use the same spices as I do- for example, some people replace cassia with cinnamon as the latter is more readily available outside of Asian supermarkets. In addition, Sichuan peppercorn is sometimes substituted with sand ginger or white peppercorns.
    3. It's really easy to make your own 5 spice powder!

    Note: There's also a lesser-known Chinese 13-spice powder- I'll share the recipe for that soon- it's slightly more complicated to make as some of the ingredients are quite difficult to find.

    Hand ground 5 spice powder in a granite mortar
    This mortar and pestle has been in my family for at least 3-4 generations! We used to have a huge mill for milling soy bean but sadly, when the government took our 1-acre house, we couldn't move the mill with us to our new place. (In Singapore, the government can buy your land if they want it to build roads etc I think our old house is now a highway.)

    How to reduce the spices to a fine powder

    You can:

    1. blitz it in a spice or coffee grinder
    2. pound it up the old-fashioned way in a mortar and pestle (it took me about 10 minutes to reduce the spices to a powder) then sieve the spice mix to remove any overly large pieces- if not your mix will be quite gritty!

    Note: using a blender isn't ideal as the spices will be broken down into uneven, fairly chunky bits. However, if you don't have a spice/ coffee blender and want to save on the arm strength, you could blend it first then pound the broken spices in a mortar till you get a fine mixture.

    A bowl of rice with tau yew bak, or soy sauce slow cooked pork.
    A bowl of tau yew bak, 1 of Singaporean Chinese families' favourite comfort foods, uses 5 spice powder along with dark soy sauce.

    How to use 5 spice powder?

    5 spice powder goes amazingly with meat, particularly pork and chicken. In Singapore, one of the most common everyday dishes in a Chinese household is tau yew bak (literally translated as soya sauce pork)- it calls for 5 spice powder and is really simple to make as well as delicious! Other ideas include:

    • braised Chinese peanuts, mushrooms, tofu and/ or eggs (a must-have with rice porridge)
    • as a seasoning for popcorn
    • as a dry-rub for roast chicken (Your roast leftovers can then be used to make stock as well as these dishes so don't toss them!)
    • as well as these recipes from other bloggers

    On the more exotic side, I've seen some dessert dishes that use 5 spice, but have not tried including it myself so no comment for now. I'd love to hear how you use this quick homemade 5 spice powder! On my end, I'm making these 5 spice braised carrots tonight! (Verdict: they were OK but not so good that I plan to make them more than once!)

    Related recipes

    • Chinese five-spice powder uses (11 ideas)
    • Easy Chinese Braised Soy Sauce Chicken Thighs
    • Taiwanese green onion pancake (Cong you bing)
    • Best Poached One Pot Chinatown Soy Sauce Chicken (with rice)
    A plate of spices for homemade Chinese 5 spice powder.

    Homemade Chinese 5 spice powder

    A quick and easy recipe to make your own 5 spice powder
    5 from 1 vote
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe
    Prep Time 1 min
    Cook Time 13 mins
    Course Side Dish
    Cuisine Cantonese, Chinese, Nyonya, peranakan, singaporean, Southeast Asian

    Equipment

    • mortar and pestle
    • OR coffee/ spice blender
    • Pan and wooden/ silicone spatula
    • sieve

    Ingredients
      

    • 4 Star anise Look for broken pieces as it makes the pounding easier
    • 1.5 teaspoon sichuan peppercorns
    • 1 casssia stick (Chinese cinnamon) about 1-2g
    • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
    • ½ teaspoon cloves

    Instructions
     

    • Dry fry the spices in a pan till their fragrance is released
    • Blitz the spices in a coffee or spice grinder. If you don't have one, you can also pound them by hand in a mortar and pestle. (This took me 9 minutes 52 seconds so it's not too time consuming.)
    • Sieve the powder to remove any bigger bits
    • Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place till you want to use it.

    Notes

    5 spice powder isn't strictly a 5 spice powder- some recipes use more than 5 spices actually. You can experiment with other variations by adding other ingredients such as anise seed, ginger root, nutmeg, sand ginger, turmeric, Amomum villosum pods (shārén 砂仁), Amomum cardamomum pods (báidòukòu 白豆蔻), licorice, Chinese dry tangerine peel or galangal.
    Keyword Chinese, Spices
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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. lulu says

      January 17, 2022 at 1:14 pm

      5 stars
      made this over the weekend and it was SO MUCH better than the McCormicks I usually buy! def a keeper recipe thanks! Used a spice grinder so didn't have a problem with the bits in the mix

      Reply
      • Zen says

        January 18, 2022 at 4:36 am

        glad to hear, Lu Lu 🙂 yes i've stopped buying ready made after making my own r-spice at home 🙂

        Reply

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    Greedygirlgourmet eating 2 sandwiches in Scotland

    Hi I'm Zhen! I couldn't boil water till I was 18 but after living abroad (in St. Andrews then London) for 11 years and having to cook for myself, I now love having friends and families over, and cooking for them. I tend to be slightly obsessive-compulsive, so I like to try many different versions of a recipe before coming up with my own "ultimate" version. Check out www.greedygirlgourmet.com every week for new tried-and-tested (on my guinea pigs aka guests!) Asian recipes which are full of flavour!

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