I have made my own homemade taco seasoning for over 10 years. It is one of the very first things I started making myself when I started my journey towards healthy eating.
It is so simple that anyone could do it, and it encourages you to keep a pantry well stocked with lots of flavorful and useful seasonings.
Why make your own homemade taco seasoning?
The packets you get at the store contain unnecessary additives and ultra processed ingredients. Why consume them when it is as simple as mixing together your own spices?
Mixing your own allows you to customize your taco seasoning to your own tastes.
Meal prep makes dinnertime that much faster and easier. Plan to make taco seasoning during your weekly meal prep.
Making your own means that you can customize the ingredients to your hearts content. Below are some ideas to consider.
Variations on the Homemade Taco Seasoning recipe:
- Make it spicy by adding cayenne pepper to taste.
- Try smoked paprika in place of the regular paprika.
- Swap the generic chili powder for a specific chili powder, like chipotle or ancho (Use spicier peppers to taste; for example I would use the full 1 TBS of ancho because it is not hot, but perhaps only 2 tsp of the spicier chipotle).
- Try smoked sea salt or smoked peppercorns in place of regular salt and pepper.
- Try toasting whole spices like cumin seed and grinding them yourself for the freshest flavors.
- Increase or decrease salt to taste. As written, the taco seasoning is relatively low sodium. You could cut it in half or omit the salt if needed for your diet. After tasting the seasoning, you could choose to increase the salt to be more like a store-bought variety.
- 1 TBS paprika
- 1 TBS onion powder
- 1 TBS garlic powder
- 1 TBS chili powder
- 1 TBS cumin
- ¾ tsp salt
- ¾ tsp fine black pepper
- Add all ingredients to a jar and shake to combine.
- Use 1 TBS and 2 tsp to season 1 lb of taco meat or meat substitute (such as ½ cup dry red lentils, cooked, mixed with 8 oz mushrooms).
