Excellent Quick and Easy Homemade Taco Seasoning

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Easy Homemade Taco Seasoning Recipe

I’ve recently become hooked on making my own spice blends, and this simple taco seasoning is one of them! Mexican delights! I love that I can control the amount of ingredients based on my tastes, and it only takes a few minutes! I find that homemade spice blends are usually much more flavorful than store-bought because of how fresh they are!

Has it happened to you where you’ve started preparing a recipe that called for taco seasoning, but you realized you didn’t have any?

Exactly this has happened to me, not to mention with other spices! But if you’ve got a handful of spices in your pantry, which I’m sure you do, then the problem can easily be solved, so don’t stress out! When you make your own spice, a pretty large batch will yield, so you’ll be ready for next time!

This quick taco seasoning recipe rocks! I use it quite frequently, in particular for seasoning seafood, meat, veggies and beans in my favorite taco recipes. The options don’t end at tacos, though! You can also toss it in soups to season, or use it as a rub on steak, fish, chicken and shrimp to pan-fry or grill your protein.

Have I convinced you to make a batch of this homemade taco seasoning yet? Well I hope so, so in that case go run to your kitchen, gather the spices and a jar, and let’s start making some taco seasoning!

What’s in This Quick Homemade Taco Seasoning Recipe?

This taco seasoning recipe only has four ingredients, and I’m sure you have all of these already! Here’s what you’ll need:

• Chili powder
• Cayenne pepper
• Ground cumin
• Pepper

Tools Needed

• Spice jar

How to Make Quick Easy Taco Seasoning at Home

All you need to do is:

1. Combine the spices. In a small bowl or an airtight jar, combine all your ingredients together and mix well.
2. Store the taco seasoning. In an airtight jar or mason jar, this taco seasoning will last up to 6 months.

What's Not in This Taco Seasoning: No Salt, No Oregano, No Garlic or Onion Powder

Most taco seasoning packets carry a dozen lines on the back. This blend is four spices in equal measure — two tablespoons each of chili powder, cayenne pepper, black pepper and ground cumin, which makes a half cup. There is no oregano in it. There is no garlic powder and no onion powder either; most copycat packet recipes open with a tsp garlic powder and a tsp onion powder, and this one skips both. There is no paprika. And there is no cornstarch, which packets carry to keep the powder loose and to thicken the pan sauce later.

Leaving the salt out is the part worth knowing about. Salt is usually the first line on a packet label, and it is where nearly all of the sodium in a seasoned pound of meat comes from. With none in the jar, the sodium in your dinner is exactly what you add at the pan. That is the whole point of getting away from the packets — no salt you did not choose, no preservatives, no anti-caking agents, none of the weird additives, and no vague natural flavor line that could mean anything. Four spices, and nothing on the labels to squint at.

Chili powder does most of the work here. In an American supermarket it is not a single chili — it is ground dried chili peppers already cut with cumin and oregano, which is worth knowing if you were expecting to add oregano separately. The cayenne pepper is the heat on its own, and the black pepper and ground cumin round it out.

How to Use It: One Pound of Ground Beef, a Cup of Water

The card makes a half cup and divides it into eight servings, so a serving is one level tablespoon. That is what I would put on a pound of ground beef: brown the meat over medium-high heat, break it up, sprinkle the tablespoon over it, then add about a cup of water and let it cook down until the sauce clings to the meat instead of pooling. A pound of meat, one tablespoon, a cup of water. No whisk, no slurry and no cornstarch needed, because the fat in the meat and the reduced water do the thickening for you. A teaspoon is plenty if you are only seasoning a single chicken breast.

The same jar goes a long way past taco shells. It seasons chicken thighs for fajitas, black beans and rice for burritos, and cauliflower or potatoes before they go in the oven; a spoonful whisked into sour cream or Greek yogurt makes one of the fastest dips going. And because it is not a packet, you can put the heat where you want it. The recipe note says to cut the cayenne pepper by half if it is too much for you, or to swap it for hot paprika at the same amount for something milder and earthier, or for red pepper flakes at half the amount.

Storing It, and Making It in Bulk