I have a cabinet full of seasonings. When people ask which ones are my favorites, I tell them salt and pepper.
It’s a fairly unimpressive answer considering the cabinet, but it’s true. Those two do most of the heavy lifting, and often they’re all you need.
I’ve had people compliment my green beans. Oil, salt, and pepper. That was the seasoning. The rest was paying attention to cooking them well.
There wasn’t a secret ingredient. The beans were well seasoned and well cooked. Sometimes that’s the whole explanation, even when people are expecting something more interesting.
It took me a while to appreciate that. I spent years learning what I could add to food before I began to understand how much I could leave alone.
It Started with Cheap Pasta
I started learning about seasoning because I was young, broke, and wanted inexpensive food to taste like something.
In the late eighties and early nineties, twenty or thirty dollars had to cover the week. Pasta cost less than fifty cents. A jar of sauce was about a dollar. That made pasta a regular participant in dinner, whether or not anyone was particularly excited to see it again.
But it also gave me something to work with.
I started adding Italian seasoning, oregano, garlic when we had it, and occasionally something that had no business being there. I was trying to make the same inexpensive ingredients taste a little different, or a little better.
Some of it worked. Some of it didn’t. Either way, we still needed dinner.
I tasted, adjusted, and tried again. When something worked, I wanted to know why. When it didn’t, I had a fairly immediate reason to remember it.
At the time, I wouldn’t have described this as a cooking education. I was improving a dollar jar of sauce. But I was learning to notice what an ingredient did, how much made a difference, and when I had gone a little too far.
Those lessons stayed useful long after I could afford something besides pasta.
Over the years, I learned from cooks, jobs, books, conversations, and my favorite cookbook, Google. I tried recipes and borrowed ideas. My ingredients improved, my tools improved, and the seasoning cabinet became considerably more crowded.
The basic process stayed the same: cook something, pay attention, and use what I learned the next time.
Learn What You’re Adding
A recipe is a useful place to meet an unfamiliar seasoning. It gives you a context and an amount, which is considerably more helpful than standing in front of an open cabinet wondering what might happen.
But following the recipe is only part of the learning. Taste the result. Notice the seasoning. Decide whether you like what it contributed.
If you change something the next time, try to make a change you can understand. A little more oregano. Less cumin. A different amount of pepper.
Change six things at once and you may make a wonderful dinner. You may also have no idea how you did it.
You don’t need to turn dinner into a controlled experiment. Just give yourself a chance to connect what you added with what you tasted.
That familiarity builds gradually. Eventually, you reach for something because you have a reasonable idea of what it will do. You still get surprised occasionally. That’s part of the entertainment.
Salt and Pepper Do Most of the Work
My usual choices are kosher salt and coarse Tellicherry black pepper.
They’re the two I reach for first. Plenty of what I cook needs very little beyond them, and the green beans are a good example. Adding more seasonings would make them different. It wouldn’t automatically make them better.
Before deciding that something needs garlic, herbs, or another spoonful of a seasoning blend, taste it. It may simply need a little more salt. You may want more pepper. It may already taste good.
Knowing when you’re finished is a useful cooking skill.
That doesn’t make the rest of the cabinet unnecessary. I like having choices. Herbs and spices can take familiar ingredients in a completely different direction, and experimenting with them is part of what makes cooking interesting.
But owning a seasoning doesn’t obligate you to put it in dinner.
When I was learning, using more things felt like progress. Sometimes it was. Eventually, being able to leave the cabinet closed became progress too.
About the Garlic
Garlic is a regular part of my cooking. I keep fresh garlic around, and I also use granulated or powdered garlic. They have different uses, and I choose according to what I’m making.
A dry seasoning mixture is a different situation from a pan of food with freshly minced garlic. I don’t expect them to do exactly the same job.
Jarred minced garlic doesn’t live in my house.
It used to. I used it years ago, when I was still learning. Now, if I’m going to use minced garlic, I will, well, mince garlic.
That doesn’t make jarred garlic wrong. It’s just not my choice.
You’re allowed to develop preferences without turning them into rules for everyone else. You’re also allowed to change those preferences as you learn. I have changed plenty of mine.
The useful question is whether you like the result and understand why you’re choosing it.
Taste, Adjust, Taste Again
“Season to taste” is perfectly reasonable advice once you know what you’re doing. Before that, it can feel like the recipe has stopped helping at a fairly important moment.
How much? What am I looking for? How do I know when it’s right?
Start by tasting what you have. Then ask what you want to change.
Does it seem bland? Is one flavor taking over? Can you taste the ingredients you wanted to taste? Would you happily eat a plate of it?
You don’t need an impressive vocabulary to answer those questions. You need to pay attention.
Make a small adjustment, stir it through, and taste again. Give yourself a chance to notice the difference before adding something else. That comparison teaches you more than adding three things and hoping they sort themselves out.
And remember that you can add more. Removing an enthusiastic addition generally requires more ingredients and a larger pot.
Count What Is Already There
Seasoning also means recognizing what the other ingredients bring with them.
When I made chuck roast with French onion soup, I seasoned the meat with salt and pepper. The soup already contained onions, garlic, and thyme. I didn’t need another round simply because I might normally have added them separately.
The flavor was amazing. I’ll make it that way again when I have the soup available.
Prepared broth, sauces, seasoning blends, and cheese can all affect the final seasoning. Taste with those contributions in mind, especially before adding more salt.
A recipe can tell you what went into the writer’s pot. You still need to pay attention to what went into yours.
Cook for Your House
I like spicy food. My partner does not share my enthusiasm.
That means seasoning dinner requires some consideration of the other person who will be eating it. My preferred amount of heat is not automatically the correct amount for the whole pot.
The basic chili recipe on this site starts with two tablespoons of chili powder. If you want it spicier, add more. Chili powders vary, so taste yours and learn what that amount does in your chili.
The same principle applies to garlic, pepper, herbs, and everything else. Your household may want more of something or less of it. Once you know that, use the information.
Recipes give you a starting point. Repeating them gives you a chance to make them fit.
That’s why I still read recipes, try unfamiliar combinations, and occasionally discover why something wasn’t in the recipe to begin with. There is always more to learn, even when you’ve been cooking for years.
I started by trying to make cheap pasta taste better. Somewhere along the way, I filled a cabinet with seasonings and learned that my favorites were still salt and pepper.
The cabinet gives me options.
Dinner tells me which ones I need.
Cook. Learn. Make it yours.