Chili Garlic Stir Fry Sauce Mix

I was craving stir fry the other night and wanted to try something new, so I came up with this:

Chili Garlic Stir Fry Sauce Mix (single use)

2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon corn starch (not shown in picture, I added it later)
1/2 teaspoon garlic flakes
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ginger powder
1/8 teaspoon dried chili flakes (more if you like it hot, this was mild)



What else you'll need

1/3 cup water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 pound boneless chicken or other meat
oil for frying
veggies for stir frying
rice

Combine mix with water and soy sauce and stir well.



Quickly stir fry the chicken in oil and then add veggies. Once veggies are cooked add sauce and simmer until sauce starts to thicken.



Serve on a bed of rice or noodles. Delicious!!!

Sweet onion teriyaki sub sauce mix

I really love Subway but I find it's way too expensive (especially for the specialty subs!) and also the processed meat doesn't agree very well with me. I was in there yesterday trying to think of why it tastes so good when all it is really is a bunch of sandwiches. It didn't take me very long to realize it's the SUB SAUCES!

Today I had a bunch of cooked chicken thighs left over from last night so I decided I was going to make my own...

Sweet onion teriyaki sub sauce mix

1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
3/4 teaspoon onion powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder



What else you'll need

3/4 cup oil
1/4 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce (more if you like it stronger. I don't like a strong 'soy' taste).

Combine mix with wet ingredients in a bottle or jar and shake until well mixed.



Use as a sauce on cooked chicken or lunch meat sandwiches, or even as a salad dressing. I made a nice chicken sub with a shredded leftover chicken thigh and some mixed greens. It was delicious, healthier and MUCH cheaper!

BBQ sauce mix

My husband is OBSESSED with BBQ sauce. He practically drinks it. He puts it on almost everything and it's starting to get expensive! I've been working on a homemade version for months now and this one is his favorite:

BBQ sauce mix (single use)

1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne



What else you'll need

1 can tomato paste
1 cup water
1/3 cup of vinegar
(up to 1 tablespoon each of lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce are optional but I found they didn't make a lot of difference)

Combine mix with wet ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer on low until sauce thickens a little. This can take a while.



I put mine in an empty BBQ sauce bottle but I often just put it in the covered bowl in the fridge because he uses so much so fast.



He puts it on everything but I only use it on chicken.

Sweet and Sour Meatball Sauce Mix

When I go to parties it's not the desserts that tempt me these days but the appetizers! I don't know where I developed this savory tooth lately but I guess it's a part of getting older. Last month I went to a my daughter's preschool Christmas party and couldn't get enough of...

Sweet and Sour Meatball Sauce Mix (single use)

1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
pinch salt

What else you'll need

1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 pound cooked meatballs

I use my meatball mix to make the meatballs. Combine mix with water, vinegar and tomato paste and stir well.

Cook or reheat meatballs in a wok or saucepan and stir in sauce. Simmer them in the sauce until the sauce starts to thicken. This can also be done in the slow cooker.

Serve them as an appetizer:

Or as part of a meal:

These are a huge hit at my house!

Fettuccine Alfredo Mix

First off, I am starting to add pin buttons to the bottom of my posts to make it easier for everyone to pin my recipes onto pinterest. I'm slowly working my way back through old recipes.

Also... wow is it ever cold. Like the other day I tried to take out the garbage and my back door was frozen shut. As a result I'm trying to cook with whatever I have in the house so I don't have to leave. Today I noticed we have a lot of pasta. So...

Fettuccine Alfredo Mix (single use)

2 tablespoons powdered milk
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 1/2 teaspoons parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch pepper

What else you'll need

1 cup uncooked pasta noodles (fettuccine is hard to measure in a cup so just grab a fistful about a quarter in diameter).
2 cups cold water
2 tablespoon butter

Combine mix, butter, noodles and water in a small saucepan and stir.

Simmer on medium heat until noodles are tender and sauce thickens.

Serve as a main dish or side. This is a Lipton's sidekick copycat recipe so it's lower in fat than regular alfredo but still very creamy.

Beef Gravy Mix

Gravy usually goes with roast beef or chicken, and you can simply make it using the drippings, but once in a while you want something with gravy when you haven't cooked any meat. Like poutine!

I'm Canadian, and poutine is ridiculously popular where I live. It's basically fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. I've heard several names for it in other parts of the world (including 'dicso fries'), but the idea is basically the same.

Beef Gravy Mix (single use)

1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 beef bouillon cube
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon pepper
pinch thyme
pinch sage

If you want a vegetarian gravy just replace the beef bouillon with a vegetable bouillon cube and presto, you can enjoy poutine just like everyone else!

Most gravy mixes are made up mostly of powdered milk, which didn't make any sense to me. I mean REAL gravy isn't made with milk is it? So I made my mix without any.

What else you'll need

2 tablespoons of butter (optional)
1 cup cold water

Combine mix with water and stir well.

The first time I made this I melted butter before pouring the mix and water into the pan to cook. The second time I forgot the butter entirely and the gravy tasted great! So if you want a really rich gravy use the butter, if you want something low fat you can skip it.

Melt butter in a wok or sauce pan (if you want). Stir in mix and water. Cook on medium heat, stirring frequently. Once the mixture begins to thicken remove it from the heat and serve.

Presto! Instant gravy to make poutine at home!

Tartar Sauce Mix

One of the many reasons I mix it up is because a pet peeve of mine is an overcrowding of condiment bottles in my fridge door. It bothers me for several reasons- you can't find the things you actually want, you can't fit the things you need and most of all you end up throwing out more than half of it.

My daughter and I are intolerant to eggs, so we don't eat any egg based sauces or condiments, but my husband LOVES them. Whenever I make fish and chips, he wants tartar sauce. But how often do we really eat fish and chips? Not often enough for one person to eat a whole bottle of the sauce before it goes bad.

I find it's much easier to keep a jar of plain mayonnaise in the fridge, and add my seasoning mixes to it to make a small portion of whatever condiment I need. So this week..

Tartar Sauce Mix (single use)

1 1/2 teaspoons dried chives
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

What else you'll need

1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons chopped pickles

Combine mix with mayo and pickles and stir well. If you can chill in the fridge for a while before using to let the flavors mix, but this isn't necessary.

I served it in a little dipping bowl with our fish and chips. He loved it almost as much as I loved that when the meal was over, there wasn't an extra bottle cluttering up my fridge.

Honey Garlic Sauce Mix

Chinese take out= delicious, overpriced and so so bad for you. Especially honey garlic spare ribs. Making them at home doesn't make them all that much healthier, but it does make them a lot cheaper, and without MSG.

I ordered some beef short ribs from the farm recently and wanted to do them in the slow cooker, but I'm not a big fan of BBQ sauce so I thought that honey garlic sauce might be nice. I also thought it was something I might be able to make into a mix.... and boy was I right!

Honey Garlic Sauce Mix

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon dried chili flakes

What else you'll need

1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons water

Combine mix with other incredients and stir well. The mixture will fizz and froth a bit when the baking soda meets the vinegar.

Pour the sauce over what you're cooking (ribs, wings, tofu, chicken breasts, ect) and use the sauce to cook in for full flavor.

I used ribs but am going to try it with wings as well. I used my slow cooker but I'm sure it would work well to bake it in the oven in a pyrex dish as well. I slow cooked my ribs on low in the sauce for 8 hours and they were fall off the bone tender.

I served mine with steamed baby carrots and 'David Hasselhoff potatoes' (they are really called hasselback potatoes but somehow the other name stuck).

The ribs were amazing, they tasted exactly like Chinese take out but at a tiny fraction of the cost. I can't wait to try the sauce on wings next!

Sweet Chili Rub Mix

I discovered sweet chili sauce for the first time in Alaska. The boat I was living on had a giant bottle on every table at meal time and I discovered that it made the most delicious dipping sauce for chicken fingers. Later on in Australia I learned how they used it as a dipping sauce for potato wedge fries, which was equally tasty.

Recently I've been toying with the idea of creating a sweet chili rub for chicken and fish. I figured it couldn't be too hard. I was right! I got it on the first try!

Sweet Chili Rub Mix

2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon chili flakes
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon garlic flakes

What else you'll need

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 fish fillets or chicken breasts (I used fish since we have a giant bag of fillets from Costco in our freezer).

Combine mix and oil and stir into a thick paste.

Coat your meat with the paste and broil or grill it.

I was feeling lazy so I served mine with oven fries and frozen green beans. My husband was blown away by how tasty it was though and requested it on chicken next time.

I'm pretty sure this can be made into a dipping sauce as well, just substitute the oil with vinegar or water (or both). Buying the sauce itself isn't too expensive, but the mix is good for when you only want a little bit, especially if you're like me and don't like your fridge cluttered up with bottles of condiments!