Tip #3: How to grind spices (without a grinder).

Let's say you have coriander seeds...

...but your recipe requires ground coriander and you don't have a spice grinder.

What to do? Measure out the quantity of ground spice required but in whole spice form. When the seeds get ground down, there will actually be less than the recipe requires; for seeds as large as coriander, TNB advises doubling up (i.e. the recipe requires half a tsp ground coriander, so you'll use 1 tsp whole coriander seeds). If you're using smaller seeds, like cumin, you can use 1.5 times the ground spice required.

Pour seeds into a resealable sandwich bag.

Seal it!

Now comes the fun part: violence via rolling pin.

You talkin' to me?

It's really important that you push as much air out of the bag before sealing it well. If there is too much air in the bag, it will pop when you begin hitting it with a rolling pin.


Yes, you heard us. You're going to hit that bag senseless with a wooden rolling pin.

Brown Mummy got a little overexcited during this stage.

If the smashed seeds are small enough for your recipe, as they were for ours, you can leave them at that.

Crumbly spices.

If you need them even smaller, you can alternate hitting the seeds with rolling your pin across the bag until your spices are fully ground.

Ta-da!