Make whole spices easy to retrieve by bundling or containing them
Tie whole spices in cheesecloth, bundle with string, or use tea bags/tea strainers so you can pull them out after cooking.
Whole spices can be hard to find at the end of cooking, especially in soups and stews. Containing them in a pouch/strainer or tying them together makes removal quick and reliable.
The short version
- Containment prevents a scavenger hunt at the end of cooking.
What you need
- cheeseclothoptionalFor making a small pouch
- stringoptionalFor bundling spices
- tea bags or tea straineroptionalActs as a spice container
How to do it
- 1
Decide which whole spices you want to infuse and later remove.
Best for large/potent spices like bay leaf, cinnamon, clove.
Watch this step - 2
Contain them in a small cheesecloth pouch, or place them in a tea bag/tea strainer.
Any method that keeps them together works.
Watch this step - 3
Alternatively, bundle the spices together with a piece of string.
Leave enough string to grab easily.
Watch this step - 4
Add to the dish to infuse, then remove the pouch/strainer/bundle before serving.
Remove once the flavor is where you want it.
Watch this step
What goes wrong
Dropping whole spices loose into a soup/stew and struggling to find them later
Use a pouch, strainer, or string bundle from the start.
Why it works
Physical containment prevents spices from dispersing through the dish, so they can be removed in one step.
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