I felt intimidated at the thought of making my own DIY spice mixes at first. The little packets you can buy at the store made it so easy, and they made my dinners taste good. Then, there was the night I was making fajitas and realized I did not have a fajita seasoning packet in my pantry.
I didn’t even have a taco seasoning packet (it must have been at the end of the month before my major trip to the grocery store). This was also before I had started building up our food storage.
I opened my trusted Better Homes and Gardens cookbook to see if they had a recipe for seasoning fajitas and there was. It was actually just a few seasonings and it ended up tasting great. I decided then that I could do it. I could start making our own seasoning. IfIf I can make my own homemade seasoning mixes, you can, too! Click To Tweet
I wanted to do it for two reasons – to know what was in our food and to make it easier to have seasonings in our food storage, something many people overlook. I found out it can also be more economical. Making your own DIY spice mixes gives you control over what brand and type of seasoning are in your food. It only takes a few key seasonings to give you a wide range of tasty options for your meals.
I would recommend having the following on hand to create your own mixes. I buy the spices I use most in bulk. Here’s a list of the most common ingredients in these mixes.
- Salt — Try kosher salt or sea salt instead of plain, table salt.
- Black pepper
- Cumin
- Cayenne
- Chili powder
- Garlic powder
- Garlic salt
- Minced onions
- Parsley
- Onion powder
- Dill, if you like Ranch dressing
You’ll find a more complete list of handy spices and other seasonings at this link.
With these, and some flour and sugar, you should be all set. Below are my favorite recipes, but a quick internet or Pinterest search will give you numerous seasoning mix recipes.
Also, save old spice and shaker bottles. You’ll need them for your new, fresh mixes. You can also buy shaker bottles new.
DIY Spice Mix for Fried rice
For fried rice seasoning, I just add garlic powder, cumin, salt, and cayenne to taste.
DIY Ranch seasoning/dressing
Store in an airtight container:
1 T. pepper
3/8 cup parsley
1/8 cup garlic salt
1/2 T. Kosher salt
2 T. dried chives
1 T. garlic powder
3 T. dried minced onion
1/2 T. dill
Keep this mixture in an airtight container. When ready to make salad dressing, whisk together 1 cup mayonnaise, 1/2 cup sour cream and 1 tablespoon mix. Add buttermilk or milk until desired consistency is reached.
DIY Taco seasoning
Store in an airtight container:
1 part chili powder
1 part ground cumin
1 part garlic powder
1 part onion powder
1/4-1/2 part crushed red pepper
I use 1 cup of chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, and onion powder, and 1/4 cup crushed red pepper.
About 1/4 cup of seasoning equals one seasoning packet. You can adjust the seasonings to your taste.
DIY Chili seasoning
Store in an airtight container:
1 T. all-purpose flour
2 T. dried minced onion
1/2 t. chili powder
1 t. seasoned salt (like Lawry’s)
1/2 t. crushed dried red pepper
1/2 t. garlic powder
1/2 t. sugar
1/2 t. ground cumin
About 1/4 cup of seasoning equals one seasoning packet
DIY seasoning mixes are great ways to change up any dry soup mixes you might have in your food storage. For ideas on including dry soup mixes in your food storage, check out this article.
Resources mentioned in the article:
- The 411 Cookbook: Seasoning Mixes and Homemade Fixes by Dewayne Newburn
- Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook
- Homemade Seasoning Mixes by J.B. Stacy
- Kosher salt – 3-pound box
- Sea salt
- Spice shaker bottles
This mixes will come in very handy because I’m off of work so saving money where ever I can is great Thank you
We’ve been doing the same recently to work around a wheat allergy, and most of the time, the stuff you come up with tastes better than the stuff you get at the store anyway.
Are you sure that ‘t’ for chili powder in the chili recipe shouldn’t have been a ‘T’? We really like to load ours up!
Why did you suggest kosher or sea salt as alternates to regular table salt?
Deb, I usually use Kosher salt, but I am sure sea salt would work great ,too.
The Question was—Why Not Table Salt??????
Matter of taste, that’s all. We also use mostly Kosher salt and Celtic sea salt.
I figure if I’m making enough chili seasoning for tonight’s dinner, I might as well make 8 batches while I have all the spices out. I use empty spice jars and put enough for one batch of chili (or taco seasoning or whatever) in each jar and label it.
We use a lot of spices, so I purchase them in bulk quantity regularly. I wash empty parmesan cheese containers well with soap and water, then rinse them in water with a little bleach added to kill anything which may have survived the soapy bath! They work great for storing larger quantities and you can find cute labels for them so that they match. Since they are all the same size, I store them on my shelves in the frequency of use.
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I’ve been doing this for years! Don’t be afraid to experiment–Try a fish & foul (lemon zest, poultry seasoning, garlic, coriander, and black pepper), a baking spice blend (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice) to make anything sweet that much better–I love it in scones and pancakes. Don’t forget that many of the spices we purchase like herbs de Provence, Chinese five spice, Greek seasoning and Italian seasoning are just blends anyway! I store my blends in airtight containers to prevent the humidity from clumping them.
I don’t use table salt because it has additives.
We usually buy “canning and pickling salt”
Ingredients – “salt” and that’s it. It also comes in 4 pound boxes, so it’s easier to stock up. We have some Himalayan pink salt the I use now and then, but for most cooking it’s just the plain salt. And that is usually what’s on the table for meals. It’s salt. And all salt is salty, which is what I want.