Gordon Ramsay’s Five-Spice Powder Recipe: How to Make Chinese Five-Spice Blend

Chinese five-spice powder is an invaluable spice blend in Chinese cooking that hits on the full range of flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami. It’s prevalent throughout Chinese and Taiwanese cuisine thanks to its ability to coax deep flavor out of just about every ingredient.

While the exact origins of five-spice powder are unknown today, the perfectly calibrated balance of the blend has led many to speculate it was a result of the search in the fourth century BCE China for a so-called “wonder powder” that synthesized each flavor—but then again, like the invention of many brilliant culinary staples, it could have been an entirely happy accident. Either way, it’s long been a staple across the Asian diaspora, with roots in Hawaiian and Vietnamese cuisine as well.

Just like garam masala in Indian cuisine, most spice blends are not always perfect facsimiles of one another. The most common ingredients in Chinese five-spice blends you’ll find in grocery stores are:

• Star anise
• Cloves
• Specific varieties of ground cinnamon
• Szechuan peppercorn
• Fennel seed

Depending on where you are and the preferences of the cook, you might find additions (or swaps) like ginger root, licorice, nutmeg, cumin, cardamom, dried orange peel, cassia, turmeric, and galangal. Seek out an Asian grocery store and compare the blends you find there.

Chinese five-spice is used across all regional Chinese cuisines, in dishes like stir-fry, rich stews, marinades, and roasted meats. Peking duck gets its signature savory tang and brilliant color from Chinese five-spice.

Chinese five-spice powder translates exceptionally well into dishes outside traditional Chinese recipes:

• Chinese five-spice makes a great spice rub for poultry, pork, and seafood
• Add Chinese five-spice to the batter for a next-level fried chicken or shrimp.
• Chinese five-spice is a particularly good match for fattier meats like pork, duck, and goose, where its combined forces work to prevent richer textures from overwhelming the palate.
• Toss Chinese five-spice with toasted nuts for a goes-with-everything bar snack, or before roasting vegetables like sweet potatoes for a spicy-smoky-sweet spin.

1. 1. If you have trouble finding Szechuan peppercorn, black peppercorns can be used as a substitute.
2. 2. Ground anise powder can stand in for the whole anise seed, and so can ground cloves instead of whole.
3. 3. When using ground spices instead of whole spices, just remember to scale back the amount you used to account for the strength of ground spices; for example, start with ¼ teaspoon ground cloves and taste before increasing.
4. 4. Use whole spices when you can to ensure freshness, and store in an airtight container.