I needed some Old Bay seasoning in a hurry, so I just grabbed the first recipe I could find off the Internet. I had to improvise slightly due to limited supplies on hand, but I'm actually fairly happy with how it came out. I think it was a bit more vibrant than the commercial Old Bay I bought a few years back.

Update: Now that I'm not in so much of a hurry, I've had a chance to look at some other Old Bay recipes and I found one from Daring Gourmet that looks quite interesting. It includes most of the same spices as the Kitchn recipe, but in different proportions. Although it does swap out the ground cayenne for red pepper flakes and uses sweet paprika instead of hot paprika. It also includes several spices that the Kitchn recipe omits. These include: ground ginger, mace, allspice, and cardamom. I think these sound like interesting additions and may experiment with adding some or all of them to my current mix.

I've left the first recipe I used here to reflect what I actually did. But I am going to post an alternate recipe below it that leans a little more on the Daring Gourmet approach.

Ersatz Old Bay

Slightly adapted from The Kitchn

Ingredients

• 2 dried bay leaves
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. celery seeds
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp. white peppercorns²
• 1 Tbsp. hot paprika¹
• 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
• 1/2 Tbsp. mustard powder
• 3/4 tsp. ground cayenne (optional)
• 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Directions

1. If desired, lightly toast the bay leaves in a dry pan until they become brittle and fragrant. This will enhance the flavour slightly and, more importantly, should help them grind more readily.
2. Combine the salt, celery seeds, peppercorns, and bay leaves in a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder.
3. Add the paprikas, mustard, cayenne (if using), cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg and stir to combine.
4. Store in a cool, dry place, preferably in an airtight container.

Variations

Alternate Old Bay (milder, sweeter, more bay-forward)

Ingredients

• 5 dried bay leaves
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. celery seeds
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp. white peppercorns
• 1/8 tsp. cardamom seeds (from green pods)
• 1 Tbsp. sweet paprika
• 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
• 1 tsp. mustard powder
• 3/4 tsp. ground cayenne
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder (optional)
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder (optional)
• 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. ground mace
• 1/8 tsp. ground allspice

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¹ The original recipe calls for a bunch of hot paprika and a little ground cayenne. I didn't have any hot paprika, but I did have ground Kashmiri chilies. So I just replaced the hot paprika with Kashmiri chilies and omitted the cayenne. It still seemed to come out a good deal spicier than commercial Old Bay, but I quite liked it. That said, I would use a light hand when applying it to recipes. I think that, given the increased spice level, you may end up finding you don't need quite as much as you would the commercial stuff. ^Back
2 The bag of peppercorns I had were a mix of black, white, and pink and I didn't have any separate white peppercorns, so I just used a full tsp. of the blend. Since the mix was mostly black peppercorns, this meant that the balance was slightly off, but I figured it'd be close enough. ^Back