7 Easy Homemade Spice Blends To Season Your Meals
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Homemade spice blends can add wonderful flavor to a variety of recipes. It’s so easy to make these spice mixes yourself – a lot cheaper too! Here are 7 spice blends to season any pork, chicken, or beef dish. You can also use them in soups, a stir fry, and so much more.
Homemade Spice Blends
Bored with the same old flavors or tired of spending too much money on store-bought spice blends? You can easily make your own for a fraction of the price!
It’s easy to flavor your meals with these seven easy seasoning mixes.
These spice blends are great because they’re made with fresh spices, contain less salt and no unwanted preservatives.
As a mom I’m always looking for ways to save money, eat healthier and make homecooking more flavorful! So I love these spice mix recipes because I know exactly what ingredients are in them. They also make a great homemade gift and they’re budget-friendly!
You can add these spice mixes to your stir fry, soups, and pasta dishes. You can use them as a dry rub for chicken, fish, pork and beef. The options are truly endless! Does it get any better!?
How To Make Mixed Spices At Home
It’s easy to create your own spice blends at home using a variety of dried spices you might already have in your pantry.
Here’s how to make them:
- Measure out each spice into a bowl.
- Stir with a spoon to mix it up.
- Pour into a spice jar and label the front with the mix name.
- Store these in the cupboard until you’re ready to use for your recipes! Give them a quick shake right before you use them.
Homemade Spice Mix Storage Tips
I like to store my spices in small jars. You could also use plastic bags. Either way I recommend labelling them. I love to use my DYMO labeler for this. These spice mixes can be stored in a drawer, cupboard or on the counter until they’re ready to use.
Note: All dried spices can lose freshness after about 5-6 months. You can check if spices need to be replaced by smelling them – if the fragrance is barely there, then it’s probably a good idea to grab a new package.
Homemade Spice Blend FAQs
All spices are shelf-stable and never truly expire. However, the potency of flavor will start to disappear the longer it is stored. Ground spices will lose there freshness after 6 months. If you smell them and there’s not much fragrance, it’s probably time to buy a new one. I like to do a spice purge every 6 months refreshing my whole spice drawer with new ones. This just makes it easier to keep track of.
This is actually a specific spice made from the Jamaican bayberry tree. It has a similar flavor to when you combine black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves – hence why it is called “allspice”. You can make your own allspice mix using ground cinnamon, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg in equal parts. For example, 1 tsp of each would produce 3 tsp worth of allspice.
This seasoning blend is typically used in holiday recipes. To make it you can use 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon, 1 tsp allspice, 1 tsp ground nutmeg, ½ tsp ground cloves, ½ tsp ground ginger, ½ tsp ground coriander, ⅛ tsp ground mace. Alternatively, you can use store-bought pumpkin spice mix, or make your own (see the next question).
I do this all the time for recipes like my pumpkin cheesecake (so yum). You can use 1 ½ tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp nutmeg, ½ tsp ginger, ¼ tsp allspice. Mix them all together to create 1 Tbsp worth of pumpkin pie spice mix.
How To Use Homemade Spice Blends
There are so many ways you can use these spice blends! Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Chicken – Sprinkle any spice rub on to the raw chicken and rub it in with the back of a spoon or your hands (making sure to wash them thoroughly afterward). You can use any of these mixes for oven baked chicken legs, air fryer chicken thighs, on a whole chicken with roasted root vegetables, or with air fryer chicken legs. The spice mixes can also be used to barbecue any meats, including chicken.
- Beef – Add any spice blend to season your ground beef, add to your homemade meatballs, or season a steak before barbecuing.
- Pork – Season your pork chops with a spice blend before pan frying, barbecuing, or baking them.
- Fish – Sprinkle overtop of cod or salmon fillets before baking in the oven. Season white fish for fish tacos.
- Soup – These spice blends can be used to flavor any soup you’re making including hamburger soup, lentil tortilla soup, or instant pot chicken taco soup.
- Stir Fry – Add to a vegetable stir fry like my broccoli chickpea stir fry, make it into a wrap like these chickpea zucchini stir fry wraps, or add to a beef and broccoli stir fry.
Tools I Recommend
Here are a few things that make homemade spice blends so much easier!
- Empty Spice Jar Set – Keep all your spices in matching glass jars with this easy set. Comes with labels, chalk pen and a funnel.
- Mini Mason Jars – An easy way to store a couple spice blends and reuse the jars for other purposes when you run out.
- Label Maker – I love my DYMO label maker and use it for almost everything, including labelling my spices.
- Canning Funnel – Avoid spilling and use one of these to add your spice mix to the jar.
Try These Sauce and Marinade Recipes:
- Chicken Marinades – These six marinade recipes will take boring chicken and zest them up with flavor.
- Tofu Marinades – Marinated tofu takes a vegetarian meal to the next level. These 7 tofu marinades are made with fresh healthy ingredients.
- Pork Chop Marinades – Instead of buying the store-bought marinades that are high in refined sugar, salt, and added preservatives, you can make your own for a fraction of the price instead.
- Stir Fry Sauces – These homemade sauces are an easy way to add incredible flavor to your vegetables, grains and meats
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7 Easy Homemade Spice Blends
Ingredients
Taco Seasoning Blend:
- 3 Tbsp chili powder
- 4 tsp cumin
- 1 ½ tsp paprika
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- ¼ tsp ground pepper
Meditteranean Seasoning Blend:
- 2 Tbsp dried oregano
- 2 Tbsp dried basil
- 1 Tbsp dried minced onion
- 1 Tbsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
Pork and Beef Seasoning Blend:
- 1 Tbsp garlic powder
- 1 Tbsp onion powder
- 1 Tbsp ground mustard
- 1 Tbsp paprika
- ½ Tbsp red pepper flakes
- 2 tsp dried minced onion
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- ¼ tsp ground pepper
Poultry Seasoning:
- 2 Tbsp dried thyme
- 4 tsp ground sage
- 1 tsp marjoram
- 2 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp ground pepper
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
Italian Seasoning Blend:
- ½ Tbsp dried basil
- ½ Tbsp dried rosemary
- ½ Tbsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp marjoram
- 2 tsp dried thyme
All Purpose Seasoning Blend:
- 2 Tbsp garlic powder
- 1 Tbsp onion powder
- 1 Tbsp smoked paprika
- 1 Tbsp dried parsley
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ½ tsp ground pepper
Jerk Seasoning Blend:
- ½ Tbsp onion powder
- ½ Tbsp garlic powder
- ½ Tbsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- ½ tsp ground allspice
- ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
- ¼ tsp ground cumin
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Add the spice ingredients to a bowl.
- Stir with a spoon so that it's evenly mixed.
- Pour into a glass jar (or plastic bag) and label the front. Seal tightly and store in the cupboard until ready to use.
- Repeat the process with any other spices mixes. These mixes can be kept in the cupboard or drawer for up to 6 months.
Thank you for these mixes I’ll make them up and use them.