The Ultimate Guide to using Condimaniac Products (to reach their full potential)!

Apr 22, 2022

By Kier Dorran Kemp

The Ultimate Guide to using Condimaniac Products (to reach their full potential)!

We always try and put a snappy instruction on the side of our seasoning and hot sauce bottles, but as you know, they're quite small so we can't always include every variation. This is why this blog post exists. I'm still going to try and keep it as concise as possible, but in some greater depth, here is how we intended for you to use our products and how we think they're best enjoyed.

Let's start with seasonings/dressing mixes:

Pizza The Action

First off, don't eat it 'raw'. I mean, you can, but that's not the best way. It's made with herbs and spices, such as thyme and cayenne pepper, and these flavours really unfold and develop when cooked into something - for example, sprinkled on a pizza before baking. This lets all the lovely ingredients bake into the cheese (or sauce). Sprinkled on a cheese toast it transforms it into a pizza toast.

Another great use is to mix it into store-bought tomato sauces that need some extra flavour - you can even just mix it into some tomato puree and water or tinned chopped tomatoes to make a simple, tasty pasta or pizza sauce. Basically, mix it into anything you want to give a pizza-ry flavour - Pizza Beans is one of our favourites.

Recipes using Pizza The Action:

All The Ranch

Make it into a dressing. If you've only used it as a seasoning, MAKE IT INTO A DRESSING. That's when it really reaches its full potential. We recommend equal parts (by volume, so for example 1 tablespoons of each) of the powder, mayonnaise and milk, but it's also great directly stirred into sour cream or yoghurt. You're the master of the ratio though, so find your perfect recipe.

You can keep it all vegan, just make sure the vegan yoghurt is unsweetened, if you want to use yoghurt. Tasty! Another great use is as a sauce finisher - particularly any creamy sauces like bechamel or cheese sauces. A little bit of All The Ranch and it really gains that yummy edge. As a seasoning it loves chips (or fries) but also can be used on chicken or vegan faux meats or even as part of a marinade. Also try sprinkling it on freshly made popcorn, yum!

Recipes using All The Ranch:

Dirty Style

dirty fries seasoning

Dirty style was invented originally to be a seasoning for fries but it also works brilliantly as a dip. Bake/fry your chips and then whilst they’re still warm, toss them in the seasoning to add a relish-like flavour to them, kind of like cheeseburger fries.

If you’re going to make it into a dip, our favourite way is just to add it to some yoghurt or soured cream. That creamy flavour really works well with the sweetness of the mix and you end up with a rich yet savoury dip that’s absolutely fab to dollop all over and make dirty fries with.

Recipes using Dirty Style:

The Good/Bad Bagel seasonings

These are really ready-to-eat meal toppers. We use toasted sesame seeds so they're nice and nutty and you really can't go wrong... or almost can't go wrong. Just sprinkle on anything that needs a salty, savoury flavour and some crunch. Beware of oven-baking too long as sesame can burn. But a lot of people do make Everything Bagels very successfully with it, too. We particularly love to just sprinkle The Good & The Bad Bagel on Avocado toast, eggs, potato wedges, soups.. The options are endless.

Recipes using The Good/Bad Bagel seasonings:

Ramen Soup Mix & Seasoning

We eat a lot of ramen and ramyeon at home (Shoutout to Nong-Shim Shin Ramyun! delish) and this mix holds a special place in our hearts <3. It’s best enjoyed as the base for a delicious ramen broth that you can then put your own spin onto.

Just use 2 teaspoons for every 250ml of water you use and be sure to heat it gently then let us steep for 5 minutes to help develop the flavour. The mix contains wakame and other dried ingredients that need that little bit of time to rehydrate and start imparting their flavour.

Once the broth is ready it’s yours to customise depending on how you like to eat your ramen. Personally at home we love to add a little bit of sesame oil for an extra nutty flavour and a slice of fake cheese (inspired by Korean cuisine). Then it’s just a matter of pouring it over your cooked noodles and adding some toppings! Apart from that, you can also use this product as a seasoning or marinade for tofu, meats, stir fries and more. It's also great for improving the flavour of a bland European-style pot noodle.

Recipes using the Ramen Soup Mix:

Dry-Roasted Seasoning

For the longest time we thought we invented this, but turns out, we didn't - a fictional character got there first :D Nevermind.
Basically, you know when you're enjoying a bag of dry-roasted peanuts and right at the end when you pour out the last few nuts, it's mostly just powder? That's the best part of the whole bag and we wanted to be able to just have that powder. So we made it!
No nut ingredients but made in a kitchen where nuts are present so caution to nut-allergy sufferers despite no nuts in ingredients list.
This stuff is like gold dust though and will impart flavour even into cardboard, promise. Sprinkle on chicken (or alternative) whilst cooking, mix it into mayo...

Recipes using Dry Roasted seasoning:

Lazyki

Lazyki is an alumni product. As the name suggests, this is our take on lazy tzatziki. Instead of having to grate your own cucumber, we've done it for you and you can make up as little or as much as you need at a time. Just stir into Greek yoghurt in a ratio of 1 to 10 (so, for every 10g of yoghurt, you need 1g of the mix. So if you have 250g yoghurt, add 25g mix). Stir it together, let it sit and rehydrate in a fridge for 10-20 mins, then drizzle a little olive oil on top and you're done! Delicious.

The base recipe comes from Jen's Greek friend from high school, just made into powder form. Apparently in parts of Greece they use vinegar, in others they use lemon juice. Jen's friend insisted on vinegar so we use vinegar powder in ours!

Pumpkin Spice Coffee Mixer

This is a seasonal product usually available August - January.
Probably our most divisive product, Pumpkin Spice Coffee mixer isn't for everyone! It's our take on the flavour of autumn, just without the sugar. So if you don't like sweeteners, this isn't for you.

Fill a standard coffee cup with milk (plant milk works great), decant into a saucepan. Add 2 teaspoons of pumpkin spice coffee mixer and 1 teaspoon of your favourite instant coffee to the milk (alternatively, hot chocolate powder can be used). Warm through and decant. For best results, strain through a sieve.

Recipes using Pumpkin Spice Coffee Mixer:

Cheeky Salts

Cheeky Salts

spicy salt
We currently have Ghost chilli, Scorpion and Carolina Reaper salts. They're pretty self-explanatory - just use where you would use salt, just be aware it's preeeeetty spicy! That makes it ideal on avocado and eggs, as the spice is slightly weakened by oils and fat.

Smokey Dragon Rub

As the name suggests this is the dry rub version of our Smokey Dragon hot sauce and it enjoys the same smoky, spicy, tangy and slightly sweet flavour profile that sauce does.

If you like to BBQ this is perfect to rub on your meat before cooking or to be used as a marinade for chicken overnight (just stir it into buttermilk). Outside of that though it gets most commonly used in our house as a seasoning for mince, especially when cooking Mexican-inspired food like tacos or chilli con carne. It melds brilliantly with the meat(-alternative) and lends it a lovely deep savoury and smoky flavour.

Recipes using the Smokey Dragon Rub:

Blue Bandit

vegan blue cheese dressing seasoning

Blue Bandit is an alumni product - it was designed to be a dip mix and that’s how it should be used for best results. We wanted to create a blue cheese dressing mix that’s accessible to vegans but vegan or not, this does taste wonderful when mixed with 1 part (by volume) mayo, 1 part yoghurt and 1 part seasoning then left for 20 minutes to meld.

Once the dip is ready it can be used just as you would any other blue cheese dip. It’s amazing with wings, perfect in a burger or brilliant when chucked over a nice salad.

Recipes using Blue Bandit:

Chamoy Seasoning and Sauce mix

If you've ever seen those pickle kit videos on TikTok, you might have heard of chamoy before! It's a Mexican condiment usually made from pickled fruit and it's super tangy and goes well with sweets and very greasy dishes. We made a powder version so it can be used as a seasoning but also be turned into a sauce by mixing it with a tiny amount of fruit juice or water.

Recipes using Chamoy:

Mexican Smash tacos

Then, our hot sauces:

Smokey Dragon

The sauce where it all started. Smokey Dragon was our first attempt at a hot sauce and it turned out pretty much perfect, at least perfect enough to get 2-stars at the Great Taste Awards (sorry, but got to show off a bit). Subtly spiced with the UK’s hottest domestically bred chilli the Komodo Dragon, it’s got enough heat to keep you interested but not too much that you can’t slather it on everything. It's pretty clean in flavour so it goes with most dishes - think a super posh smoky tomato hot sauce!

It’s just as at home in a burger as it is with pizza or on a burrito. This is a dipping sauce all the way, designed to beautifully coat your crispy wings or adorn your charred corn tacos with some extra flavour. Don’t waste it as a cooking ingredient.

Recipes using Smokey Dragon hot sauce:

Séance

Séance gets its name from the Ghost chillies (also called Bhut/Naga Jolokia) that give it its heat, although we didn’t stop with just one pepper. Technically containing 4 types of chilli (If you count cayenne pepper powder) it’s a layered heat experience that starts punchy and lingers.

It’s flavoured using a North African/Middle-Eastern spice mix that gives it earthy, floral notes and was our first product to win a Great Taste award in 2020. Much like the rub of the same name, the spices lend themselves well to any dishes from the MENA and Levant regions including flat breads, kebabs and grilled vegetables. One thing I also like to do is mix it with mayo. It cools down the heat a little and makes a creamy version of the sauce, enabling you to have more of its delicious flavour without burning off your mouth.

Recipes using Séance hot sauce:

Kyubi

Kyubi is named after a nine tailed fox spirit from East Asian mythology. Its recipe however was based on a sweet and sour sauce that my very Yorkshirian father used to cook when I was a kid.

Another winner at the 2021 great taste awards, this little number is surprisingly versatile but best used with East-Asian-style food. Dip your sushi in it, cover your Poke bowl or even use to coat deep fried tofu. Basically anywhere that you would use a sweet and sour sauce.

Recipes using Kyubi hot sauce:

Siren's Island

Siren's Island is an alumni product. Another award-winner but a little bit milder this time around. With Siren’s Island we wanted to create a sauce that celebrated the natural sweetness of mango with spices that complimented it. The result is a mild-medium and sweet hot sauce with hints of turmeric, cumin, ginger, lemon zest and mustard. Much like a very upmarket mango chutney for hot sauce lovers.

This blend of English and South-Asian flavours lends itself well to Indian food of course, but perhaps less obviously it goes amazingly with fish and chips due to its citrusy and curried flavour profile.

Recipes using Siren's Island:

Siren's chicken and raita wrap

Bella Muerte

Bella is Jen’s fave of our hot sauces, mainly because she eats loads of Mexican food and this stuff goes really well with those flavours. It’s the mildest of our hot sauce line-up and was inspired by the flavours of charred corn salsa. It’s sweet, sharp with lime and has a touch of delicious burnt flavour from the actual charred corn that we use to make it.

Whilst you could use this for other stuff personally I’d stick with the Mexican classics. It’s perfect on tacos, amazing on a quesadilla and next level in a burrito as it provides just the right amount of sharp acidity to cut through fatty flavours like cheese and sour cream.

Recipes using Bella Muerte hot sauce:

Flying Fox

When making Flying Fox our goal was simple. Make a super hot sauce that packs loads of heat and doesn’t taste like just heat with no flavour. It’s not the hottest hot sauce on the market - no extracts here - but it’s certainly the hottest one that you’ll actually want to eat.

We use a lot of garlic in this and balance that with fruity blood orange (hence the name... fruit bat, blood, vampire, garlic, anyone get it?) and that lends itself well to almost anything. This sauce has a bit of a cult following so rather than explain how to use it I thought I’d just get a quote from one of it’s biggest fans. Here’s what one of our customers Shane says:

“I put it everywhere. I’ve used on tacos, scrambled eggs, I’ve mixed into spag bol. I’ve even used it in Caesar salad dressing.”

It's quite tangy and garlicy but otherwise has a clean flavour profile, so can be paired with most dishes!

Recipes using Flying Fox hot sauce:

Onion Gravy Ketchup

Finally, we made a non-spicy sauce! If anyone remembers our Onion Gravy Chutney, then this is very similar, just in ketchup form. It's sweet and savoury, herby, more-ish. Made from 60% onions, it's not just cold gravy. Dip your chips in it, add it to sandwiches or drink it straight from the bottle.

Recipes using OGK:

And last but not least - pickles and ferments:

Wicked Pickles

Crunchy pickles with sweet maple syrup and the kick of Scotch Bonnet peppers.

These guys are moreish. Whilst of course yes they do go brilliantly in a sandwich and sure you can use them on top of a hot dog. There’s only one way I’d recommend to eat these bad boys.

And that’s straight out the jar! We cut them extra thick, to give you that super crunch, and all without any cheeky firming agents!

Kimchi Pickle

Kimchi Pickle was one of Jen’s brainwaves. We’d been making lots of wild fermented kimchi at home but that can be tricky to sell as it's alive and fizzy, so will likely explode in the post... We wanted to try and find something that had the charm of kimchi but was a little more shelf-stable and could live in the fridge for a long time.

The result is kimchi pickle. We tried to take everything that's lovely about traditional kimchi and put it in a pickle. We love East-Asian food so this is in no way trying to replace fermented kimchi, it's just a fun variation and contains no napa cabbage. It can be used as a side dish, on a hot dog, on a burger... I’ve even been using it in cheese sandwiches, sounds weird but the umami flavour that the wakame gives lends itself perfectly to being a crunchy sandwich addition.

Recipes using Kimchi Pickle:

Kimchi Burger

Maple Candied Jalapeños

Candied Jalapeños (also often known as cowboy candy) are sweet, spicy and moreish. We've added a bit of maple syrup for a deep, rich flavour as well as a little cayenne pepper and garlic. Perfect in a sandwich, on a burger, in a quesadilla or just straight out of the jar. Lots of people also on enjoy them on pizza and in hot dogs.

Recipes using Candied Jalapeños (and its syrup):

Onion Gravy Chutney

The original! Before Onion Gravy Ketchup, there was this. We usually only make this around Christmas as it's THE BEST THING to put on a cheeseboard and leftover roast sandwich. It's thick, sticky, intensely savoury, sweet and just amazing. Tastes like ... if onion gravy was a chutney. I know right!

Wild-fermented kimchi

We've been making kimchi for many years at Condimaniac, but because wild-ferments are alive and tend to leak and explode in transit, we came up with kimchi pickle instead! But whilst it's amazing in its own right, it cannot replace real, fermented kimchi. So sometimes we also sell our 'real' kimchi. It's the national dish of Korea and amazing with rice, in stews, pancakes... in everything really. Or just straight out of the jar as a snack. We also make ours vegan!

Recipes using wild-fermented kimchi:

We're always adding to this post, but if we've missed something, let us know :)

The Ultimate Guide to using Condimaniac Products (to reach their full potential)!

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