Harissa and Gochujang
Harissa paste has been in my household since I can remember, and it’s seriously one of the things we literally can not do without. It’s a mildly spicy paste that goes with literally anything. I like to think to Gochujang as its asian counterpart. I use the first one on western food, and the second on asian food. However, I’ll tell you a secret: sometimes I put gochujang on pizza. It’s just really good.
I also need to try the gochujang cookies one day, I just need to find a way to make the recipe vegan.

Tabasco and mini dried chili peppers
My favourite Tabasco is the green one, which is the jalapeño one. It’s milder, but it has a very fragrant flavour, which is perfect, because you can put a lot of it and make the dish super flavourful and with a good amount of spiciness. Then I always keep some super tiny dried chili peppers in a pepper mill for when I prefer to use chili flakes rather than a sauce.

Extravirgin olive oil and sunflower oil
Very stereotypical, but I almost only use e.v. olive oil. I never really considered the other ones, because I never saw anyone using them, and to this day I’m still not that much sure what they are or how to use them. I keep sunflower oil for when my mum’s here and she wants to fry something, but other than that I use regular olive oil for cooking. I don’t know why, it’s just how I do it. Besides regular ev olive oil, I always keep a bottle of local ev oil made with not fully ripe olives, because it’s my absolute favourite, to use on raw food (mainly veggies), chili oil for western dishes, and homemade “Chinese” chili oil for asian dishes, with a lot of Sichuan peppercorn and aniseed in it.
I feel like this whole “I only use extravirgin olive oil” thing might sound fancy to someone who’s not from here, but it’s not really. I buy it from a local family run business and that’s it.

Balsamic vinegar, white rice vinegar and honey vinegar
I really, really love vinegar and I’ve been using it since I can remember. Growing up, I was actually surprised that no one of my friends’ families seemed to use it as much as we did. I mainly use balsamic vinegar in western recipes, and rice vinegar and Chinese honey vinegar in asian ones. Honey vinegar is absolutely the best thing ever, I’d drink it if I could, and I always use it mixed with my soy sauce as a dip for dumplings etc. I used Zhenjiang vinegar before converting to it, which was good but years apart from the honey one.
Sometimes I use red wine vinegar, but I wouldn’t really consider it an essential.

Soy sauce
In my household we always used Kikkoman, mainly because it’s the most popular brand in my city. I buy the 1L green bottle, which is the one with less salt. Mainly because it just tastes better in the recipes I make the most, and since I always mix it with vinegar when I use it as a dip, I find the taste is more balanced if there’s less salt. When I wasn’t vegan and ate sushi I think I preferred the regular one.

Fresh basil, coriander, bay leaves, mint, rosemary, parsley
These are the fresh herbs I love the most. Coriander is pretty hard to find in my country, which is a pity because it tastes so good. I honestly never tried the dried versions of any of these, except for bay leaves.

Nutmeg, paprika, sweet mixed spice, black sesame seeds
I think these are the only dried spices I’d consider actually essential. The sweet mixed spice isn’t actually “essential”, I just make sure to have it in time for autumn/winter, since it’s impossible to find in my country. I get it from Holland & Barrett, the Neal's Yard Wholefoods’ one. First one I tried, I liked it, so I stick to it. Every year I make gingerbread snaps with it.
As for sesame seeds I get the black ones, from Chinese shops, because they taste better.

Red/white onion, garlic, tomatoes, lemons (or limes)
These are the vegetables I consider the most essential. Can’t recall a time where I’ve been out of any of these things for more than two full days.

Miso and cube stock
I still can’t decide which miso is my favourite. When I was younger I was really into strong brown miso, now every version is my favourite. My mum hates cube stock and sees it as a “lazy ingredient”, but I love it.

Lao Gan Ma preserved black beans in chilli oil
I love this preserve so much. And it goes with anything. Nothing to add.