Homemade Taco Seasoning Mix
By Elizabeth Ciobanu ·
Use this tasty homemade spice mixture to flavor tacos, chili, crockpot chicken, and more.
I like to use my own homemade taco seasoning mixture for a variety of reasons.
The biggest reason is that I don't like to use the premade taco seasoning found on most grocery store shelves. If the ingredient list mentions spices, I just don't know what that means. I want to know what I'm putting in my food.
More specialty or gourmet taco spice mixes just cost more, so it's cheaper to make my own. And I can adjust the heat level just the way I like it – not too hot, but definitely not bland, either.
And when you can buy spices in bulk at a market or a membership club store, you can save quite a bit over the years, especially when you have tacos as often as we do (Taco Tuesdays, anyone?!).
For years, I've been putting my preferred spices into my taco meat or chili individually, opening a whole series of containers one by one to flavor the meal. While it's not a big deal, I've been thinking for a while that it would be a whole lot more efficient to mix up a big batch, and then I only have to open one container and done.
I finally spent the time to figure out the proportions to get the big batch mixture just right. And even better, it fits in a quart jar with just enough room at the top to shake it up and get everything distributed evenly.
You might laugh at the simplicity of the proportions, but that's okay, because it tastes fantastic – just right, the way I love my tacos.
- Prep
- 5 min
- Total
- 5 min
- Makes
- 1 quart
Ingredients
- 1 cup chili powder
- 1/2 cup paprika
- 1/2 cup cumin
- 1/2 cup oregano
- 1/2 cup dried minced onion
- 1/2 cup dried granulated garlic
- 1/2 cup salt
Instructions
- Mix all the dried spices up in a quart-sized glass jar.
- To use for taco seasoning, add 2 tablespoons of spice mixture for 1 lb of ground beef (along with 1/4 cup of water or broth).
- To use for chili seasoning, add 2 1/2 tablespoons to your chili.
- To use as a dry rub for crockpot chicken, mix 2 tablespoons of the spice mixture with 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and rub on chicken thighs or drumsticks.