Homemade Five-Spice Powder
Chinese five spice powder (五香粉, five spices powder, or five-spice powder) is a convenient seasoning for Cantonese cuisine. It incorporates the five basic flavours of Chinese cooking—sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salty. One common recipe includes China Tung Hing cinnamon, powdered cassia buds, powdered star anise and anise seed, ginger root, and ground cloves. Another recipe for the powder consists of cinnamon, black pepper, cloves, fennel seed, and star anise. It is used in most Cantonese roasted ducks, as well as beef stew.
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons Szechuan peppercorns
- 8 star anise pods
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon ground fennel seeds
Ingredients for 7 servings (22 g) · the original recipe
Method
- 1
Toast the Szechuan peppercorns in a dry frying pan for about 3 minutes.
Stovetop - 2
Grind the peppercorns in a pepper grinder or coffee grinder together with the star anise pods.
- 3
Sift the ground spices to remove any larger bits.
- 4
Mix together the cloves, cinnamon, and fennel seeds.
- 5
Grind the completed mixture until it is a very fine powder.
- 6
Use sparingly, as it is extremely pungent.
Recipe from Wikibooks Cookbook, written by Wikibooks contributors. Used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence; the ingredient list and method on this page are taken from that page and edited (its notes, tips and variations are not reproduced), and are available under the same licence. The macros, equipment tags and scaling are Ma Kitchen’s own and are not the source’s figures. Ma Kitchen is not affiliated with or endorsed by Wikibooks Cookbook. Copied on 2026-11-12.
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