Salty, savoury, sweet and umami packed salt and pepper mix, perfect on fried chicken, king prawns, chips and more!
This Chinese takeaway style mix is utterly delicious on crispy chicken, spare ribs, chicken wings, chips and much more.
Ingredients For Salt And Pepper Mix
This takeaway style mix is full of flavour thanks to salty, sweet, umami and fragrant ingredients including salt, MSG, sugar and 5-spice.
How To Make Salt And Pepper Mix
Step 1: Toast
Heat a dry wok or large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the sea salt and whole star anise and dry-fry, stirring often, until the salt changes colour and becomes a little darker (this should take around 10 minutes). Set aside to cool completely (be careful, the toasted salt will be VERY hot).
Step 2: Mix
Once the toasted salt is completely cool, add it to a large bowl. Add the monosodium glutamate, caster sugar, white pepper, ginger powder, Chinese 5-spice powder, extra hot chilli powder and smoked garlic powder. Mix well and pour the salt and pepper mix into a shaker or a food-safe container.
Step 3: Store
The mix is now ready to use and can be stored in a lidded container, or for convenience you can transfer to a shaker – for one portion, I generally use around 1 teaspoon of seasoning.
I hope you’ll try this Chinese takeaway style salt & pepper mix recipe. If you do, let me know in the comments how it went!
Aromatic, sweet and salty, this seasoning can be used to great effect with fried chicken, ribs, chips or mini spring rolls.
- 6 tablespoons sea salt
- 1 whole star anise
- 2 tablespoons monosodium glutamate see notes
- 3 tablespoons caster sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons white pepper
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ginger powder
- 1 1/2 tablespoons Chinese 5-spice powder
- 1/4 teaspoon extra hot chilli powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked garlic powder
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Heat a dry wok or large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the sea salt and whole star anise. Dry-fry the salt, stirring often, until the salt changes colour and becomes a little darker (this should take around 10 minutes). Set aside to cool completely (be careful, the toasted salt will be VERY hot).
-
Once the toasted salt is completely cool, add it to a large bowl. Add the monosodium glutamate, caster sugar, white pepper, ginger powder, Chinese 5-spice powder, extra hot chilli powder and smoked garlic powder. Mix well and pour the salt and pepper mix into a shaker or a food-safe container.
-
The salt and pepper seasoning mix is now ready to use and can be stored in a lidded container – for one portion, I generally use around 1 teaspoon of seasoning.
- I haven’t added any dried crushed chilli flakes to this mix as I like to be able to adjust the heat levels to order depending on who I’m cooking for. You could, however, add 1 to 2 teaspoons of dried crushed chilli flakes to the mix.
- Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) has had some unwarranted bad press over the years but has been consistently shown to be safe – if you’re unsure about it you may, of course, leave it out of your mix, however I highly recommend using it if you’re serious about trying to replicate Chinese takeaway flavours.
Do you like this Chinese takeaway style salt and pepper mix recipe? If so, buying a copy of my book might appeal to you! In The Chinese Takeaway Secret you can find a host of restaurant and takeaway style recipes that you can make at home. You’ll learn how to make spare ribs in bbq sauce, mongolian beef, lemon chicken and more! You can buy The Chinese Takeaway Secret in paperback or kindle form here.
- McGovern, Kenny (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 240 Pages – 06/09/2022 (Publication Date) – Robinson (Publisher)
Thankyou Kenny for your recipes.I’ve ordered your book and have all the others
Thanks Karen! I appreciate it 🙂
Hi Kenny, Can I use table salt instead of sea salt? Thanks.
You can!