Lebanese seven-spice is warming and aromatic blend of spices. Seven-spice is Lebanon’s answer to garam masala. It’s a rich, smoky Middle Eastern flavour.

Seven-spice ingredients

As you might imagine, you make seven-spice mix by blending seven spices together! Traditionally, you use whole spices, grind them and mix them together. To make life easier, I’m using ready ground, the seven spices you need are:

• Cracked black pepper
• Allspice
• Cinnamon
• Ginger
• Nutmeg
• Cloves
• Coriander

I also add sea salt to enhance the flavours. You can experiment with your own seven-spice mix: replace sweet spices with cumin or nigella for earthiness. Or fenugreek for bittersweet tones.

How to make and store seven-spice

To make seven-spice, simply place the spices and salt in a bowl and mix to combine. An easy way to to do this is to use a jam jar, just place the ingredients in the jar, screw the lid on and shake vigorously. Then take what you need for a recipe and store the rest!

I love to store my spice blends in Kilner glass clip top spice jars. Seven-spice can be stored for up to up six months. But I’m sure you’ll love this so much it won’t last that long! With spices the fresh the better, and when the spices smell of nothing it’s time to say goodbye.

How to use seven-spice

• Use seven-spice in chickpea and aubergine seven-spice tray bake
• You can also use it as a marinade for meat – try rubbing it into pulled pork (switch the Cajun spice blend for seven-spice).

More spice blends to try

Spice up your life with delicious dukkah, an everyday blend of spices and nuts that makes a wonderful addition to classic hummus and is insanely good served with cod.

I hope you enjoy this Lebanese 7-spice recipe. If you make it, let me know how it turned out. I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below, or post in The Fertility Kitchen Community.