Seven Ways to Use Spices

By: The Duke Health & Well-Being Nutrition Team

Spices, derived from intensely flavored flowers, fruits, seeds, roots, or bark, can transform the most basic of dishes. Add some kick to steamed green beans with ginger, liven up a grilled chicken with cinnamon, or blend turmeric into your next smoothie! The Duke Health and Well-Being Nutrition team created the Seven Ways series to share many ways to utilize fresh or dried spices to enhance your next dish at home.

Don’t know much about spices? Download our Spices Guides. We created a guide for each flavor so you can have fun exploring and elevating your dishes to new levels.

Seven Ways to Use Ginger

• Breakfast: Stir ginger and cinnamon into baked or sauced apples or a grain/oatmeal bowl. Sprinkle generously into plain or vanilla Greek yogurt. Sip a cup of ginger tea for a mid-morning pick-me-up.
• Blended: Add a 1/2 to a 1-inch slice of fresh ginger to your smoothie for a spicy kick (try with frozen banana, berries, yogurt, and greens)
• Combination: Sauté ginger and garlic with stir-fried onions, pea pods, mushrooms, and broccoli
• Cooked: Curries include ginger. Make your curry blend or buy a pre-made powder.
• Sandwich or Wrap: Enjoy pickled ginger with sushi, or try it on your favorite sandwich for a zesty twist.
• Salad: Enhance a carrot and beet or cabbage slaw with fresh grated ginger and orange dressing.
• Soup or Stew: Ginger stars in dal made with lentils, split peas, or mung beans as well as curried pumpkin, carrot, or squash soup.

Download Ginger Guide

Seven Ways to Use Garlic

• Breakfast: Scramble eggs with spinach, peppers, garlic, and mushrooms. Add to cooked hash browns.
• Blended: Garlic is essential in blended bean dips or hummus, pesto, tomato sauce, and gremolata.
• Combination: Chop garlic and let it stand for 5 or 10 minutes before cooking to help activate beneficial properties. Add to grains, potatoes, meats, beans, and stir fry vegetables.
• Cooked: Roast the entire head and squeeze out the soft puree. Buy peeled whole garlic cloves and roast for 5-10 minutes at 350 degrees. Roasted garlic can be frozen for quick inclusion in other recipes.
• Sandwich or Wrap: Add a dollop of garlicky hummus or guacamole to your favorite filling.
• Salad: Top a fajita salad with garlic salsa; or whip up a creamy garlic dressing in your blender with cottage cheese, a little mayo, fresh herbs, and water for consistency.
• Soup or Stew: Aromatics including carrots, celery, onion, and garlic contribute base flavors for most soups.

Download Garlic Guide

Seven Ways to Use Cinnamon

• Breakfast: Sprinkle over oatmeal with apples, raisins, or chopped dates and almonds or walnuts.
• Blended: Add ½ tsp to a smoothie with 1 TBS cocoa powder, ½ cup banana or frozen mango chunks and plain or vanilla yogurt or soy milk.
• Combination: Mix into a cooked grain such as rice, quinoa, or buckwheat along with a dash of ginger, nutmeg, and dried apricots or raisins. Add to your savory or lightly sweetened pumpkin crustless pie.
• Cooked: Grill or bake halved peaches, pineapple or pears with a dash of cinnamon.
• Sandwich or Wrap: Dress up a peanut butter and banana sandwich or toast.
• Salad: Ramp up the sweet flavors of apple, walnuts, and celery Waldorf style salad or include in the dressing of a slaw made with carrots, oranges, and beets.
• Soup or Stew: Add a dash to your pumpkin or butternut squash soup or curry sauce.

Download Cinnamon Guide

Seven ways to Use Turmeric

• Breakfast: Add a dash of turmeric to a morning egg, tofu, or potato scramble.
• Blended: Blend up a turmeric smoothie bowl for breakfast or snack. Tropical flavors like mango or pineapple with soy milk or yogurt and cashews are a natural fit.
• Combination: Create a turmeric, ginger, and garlic sauce for rice, noodles, or sautéed vegetables. Use freshly grated root or dried powder.
• Cooked: Sprinkle on tofu, tempeh, or cod before baking.
• Sandwich or Wrap: Stuff your wrap with turmeric containing curried veggies or bean burgers. Stir turmeric into mayonnaise for a spread.
• Salad: Drizzle a turmeric-containing salad dressing over greens; mix into egg salad or curried chicken salad.
• Soup or Stew: Lentil, split pea, and mung bean dals and curries contain turmeric. Select a recipe for chicken turmeric stew or stir a teaspoon into chicken noodle soup.

Download Turmeric Guide

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Seven Ways to Use Common Foods

About Duke Health & Well-Being Nutrition & Lifestyle Services

Our individualized nutrition services are utilized to treat specific health conditions, manage weight healthfully, and attain optimal vitality through a wholesome diet. Our nutritionists understand that getting on the right path toward your health goals is a process that requires support, adjustment, and taking small steps to make lasting and positive changes. Work with a nutritionist to discover the connection between food, movement, stress, and rest and make strategic changes to your diet that will help you achieve your goals.

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