Make Your Own Seasoning Blends

Have you ever made your own seasoning blends? There’s lot of reasons to give it a try!

We’ve all been there. You’re excited to make a recipe until you see in the ingredient list a spice blend that you don’t have. Or maybe you’ve bought a seasoning blend and found that it wasn’t quite right for you and you have to add additional ingredients anyways.

No more! Making your own blends puts the power in your hands so that it’s perfect for you.

Why Make Your Own Seasoning Blends?

There’s lots of reasons to do this! 

1. No additives or unknown ingredients. You know exactly what you’re getting instead of jars that list things like ‘natural flavor’ and ‘spices’. 
2. You can make as much or as little as you want. Constantly making tacos and buying seasoning packets? Double or triple our recipe so you’re set for months. Want to try herbs de Provence for one recipe but don’t want a big jar that gets forgotten in the back of the pantry? No problem, cut the recipe in half.
3. Customization. Do you find the store-bought spice blends have too much salt or maybe they aren’t spicy enough? When you make your own you can adjust them to fit you and your family’s tastes.
4. It’s fun! Do you have kids that are starting to help out in the kitchen? Teach them about measurements and the difference between teaspoons and tablespoons. Even little ones will enjoy shaking jars and seeing the different colors of spices mix together.
5. They make great gifts. Homemade seasoning blends are a great personal gift for the foodies in your life. Make some cute labels and maybe share a recipe that your loved one can use the spice blend in. You may find that they ask year after year for your special adobo seasoning!

Can I Make a Small Batch Of A Seasoning Blend

It’s not always easy to take a recipe for a seasoning blend and divide it into half or a quarter. That’s because it might have amounts that don’t divide well. What we’ve therefore done in most of our seasoning blend recipes is to give you a small version, in addition to the larger version, so that you don’t have to figure that out yourself.

What we’ve also done is a little section in the article that tells you what to do if you just want to add seasonings straight into what you’re cooking. For instance, if you’re making spaghetti sauce and you want it to have the flavors of Italian seasoning, we’re telling you that for 1/2 pound of meat, you’ll go ahead and sprinkle in about 1/2 teaspoon of dry basil, oregano, and parsley, as well as a little bit of rosemary, thyme, and garlic powder. That way, you don’t have to mix up a blend to use it, but can learn to add seasonings on the fly that approximate the store-bought brands.

Which Seasoning Blend Recipes Are Available?

We actually have a lot of them and are adding more all the time. So far, we have these ones:

Italian Seasoning	Italian Sausage Seasoning
Breakfast Sausage Seasoning	Pumpkin Pie Spice
Taco Seasoning	Fajita Seasoning
Ranch Seasoning	Old Bay Copycat Seasoning
Cajun Seasoning	Tajin Seasoning
Montreal Steak Seasoning	Everything Bagel Seasoning
Adobo Seasoning	Poultry Seasoning
Creole Seasoning	Herbs de Provence
Turkey Seasoning

What Do I Need For Homemade Spice Mixes?

If you’re making a lot of a particular seasoning, or if you’re making several of them over and over, you may want to buy the main spices in bulk. Black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and cayenne pepper are good ones to have on hand. There are plenty of places online to get these, but lots of grocery stores will also have the bigger containers. 

If you want to get really fancy with it, you could even buy the spices whole and grind them yourself. You may be familiar with whole peppercorns, but other spices like cumin, cloves, nutmeg and coriander can be purchased whole and ground with a spice grinder (or a well cleaned coffee grinder). Herbs on the other hand come from the leaves, not the seeds of plants, so no need to do any grinding with those.

The basics you’ll need though are spice jars and a way to label them, a funnel so you don’t end up with a countertop of spices, and the specific ingredients for the seasoning mix you’d like. All of our seasoning blends as written make approximately 4 ounces, which fits nicely into these jars.

I can’t wait for you to try all these amazing homemade seasoning blends with you! Not seeing a seasoning blend that you’d like? Leave a comment below!

Have a great day! -Christine xo