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
I almost only use extravirgin 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 evo, I always keep a bottle of the local one made with not fully ripe olives, because it’s my absolute favourite, to use on raw food (mainly veggies), then a bottle of chili oil for western dishes, and homemade “Chinese” chili oil for asian dishes, with a lot of Sichuan peppercorn and aniseed in 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've always used Kikkoman. 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.