Making your own Homemade Taco Seasoning takes only 5 minutes and you probably already have the spices needed in your pantry! It’s so much cheaper than buying a pre-made mix, and it’s a great way to add healthy, low-calorie flavor to your favorite Mexican-inspired recipes.
This DIY taco seasoning mix is perfect to add to chicken, beef, or shrimp in tacos or enchiladas. Or, you can add it to any Mexican-inspired pasta, rice, or other dish. It’s a versatile way to add healthy flavor to food!
When you use lots of spices, you can pump up the flavor of food without the need for too much added fat.
And it’s so nice to have a few go-to spice mixes ready to go in your pantry so you can whip up recipes in a jiffy without the need for measuring each and every spice.
This taco seasoning recipe includes salt, which means you won’t need to add much, or any, salt to the recipe you’re making. You can always leave the salt out of the mix if you prefer to control it on a case by case basis.
Ingredients List
- Chili Powder
- Fine grain salt – I usually use kosher salt in recipes, but for this spice mix fine grain is better so it doesn’t settle at the bottom and is evenly dispersed. You can use sea salt, table salt, or Himalayan salt.
- Ground cumin
- Garlic powder
- Dried oregano
- Onion powder
- Smoked paprika – regular or sweet paprika can be used instead if you don’t have smoked.
- Ground coriander – you can omit this if you don’t have it, as it’s one of the less common spices in this list.
- Black pepper
- Crushed red pepper – you can omit this if you don’t want the mix to be spicy, or add more or substitute with cayenne pepper if you like spiciness.
How to make taco seasoning mix
Just measure out each spice in a bowl or jar, and stir or cover and shake to combine! Easy peasy.
How to store it
I like to store my homemade taco seasoning mix in a small (4 oz.) mason jar. You can use any airtight container or jar to store the seasoning. This recipe yields just under 6 tablespoons, which is a little more than 1/3 cup.
And it will stay good for a year stored this way at room temperature!
One word of advice: before you use the seasoning, shake the jar or container up. Some of the spices may be different sizes and weights from each other, so some may settle at the bottom.
I love organizing my spices in a kitchen drawer on a drawer spice rack – it makes them so easily accessible and saves me tons of time in the kitchen!
Recipes to use taco seasoning
I love using this taco seasoning as an all-purpose spice mix for almost anything! Here are some recipe ideas to get you started.
- Taco Stuffed Mini Peppers
- One Pot Cheesy Taco Pasta
- Tex Mex Tuna Noodle Casserole
- Use taco seasoning in place of blackening seasoning for blackened tilapia or blackened shrimp tacos.
- Breakfast Burritos (from Immaculate Bites)
- Chorizo Mexican Pizza (from Grandbaby Cakes)
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Homemade Taco Seasoning
Equipment
- Small Jar
- Measuring Spoons
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 tablespoon fine grain salt (see notes)
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (or regular paprika)
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander (coriander seed)
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (increase or decrease depending on spice level preference)
Instructions
- Mix all spices together in a small bowl or shake together in a jar.
- Store in an airtight container or jar at room temperature for about a year. Use to season chicken, beef, seafood, pasta, and more! Shake before using, as some spices may have settled to the bottom.
Notes
- This taco seasoning assumes that it will be used in a recipe without any additional salt. If you like, you can omit or decrease the salt in this mix, and season with salt separately when you make a recipe. I recommend using fine salt, such as fine sea salt or table salt, instead of kosher, so it will be more evenly dispersed and not sink to the bottom of the spice mix as much.
- This recipe actually yields 5.5 tablespoons total– I wasn’t able to add the half tablespoon in the total amount in this recipe card, so I rounded up to 6. You can increase the amount of each ingredient to a slightly heaping tablespoon or teaspoon in order to make it more equal 6 tablespoons total.
- Use about 2 tablespoons of seasoning per lb. of meat– for ground beef tacos, I recommend browning the ground beef in a skillet, adding 2 tablespoons of seasoning, and about 2 tablespoons-1/4 cup of water to thicken it into more of a sauce. Then, serve on tortillas with your favorite fixings!
Nutrition
Nutrition Information Disclaimer
The provided nutrition information is my best estimate and reflects one serving of the recipe (total servings indicated at top of recipe card). It does not include any added sodium from seasoning to taste, any optional ingredients, and it does not take brands into account. I use an automatic API to calculate this information. Feel free to calculate it yourself using one of these tools:
P ARMSTRONG
Sorry to hear of your accident, hope you heal quickly. Have mine ready but am wondering how much do you use in a pound of ground beef for simple tacos?
Elizabeth Lindemann
Thank you! I would use 2 tablespoons for a pound of ground beef, and add a little water or chicken stock to make a thicker sauce to cover every bite. Hope that helps and thanks for asking this question- I’m going to add it to the recipe notes!
Pam
Thanks for letting me know how much to use. I made this exactly as the recipe states and then added the 2 tbs. of seasoning with 1/4 cup water to a pound of browned ground beef (like the prepackaged mix from the store) and let it simmer a bit and it was fantastic! My go to from now on!
Elizabeth Lindemann
Yay! So glad it worked out well for you!
jude
so sorry to hear about your injury, elizabeth. hope you heal fast and well!
thank you for this simple perfect recipe that hopefully will replace my high end purchased mix.
Elizabeth Lindemann
Thank you so much!
Lea
Great recipe. So much better than buying it prepared. No preservatives.
Elizabeth Lindemann
Agreed! Love being able to control the ingredients that go into it.
Allison Ryder-Holtz
Love this! I added more red pepper flakes, though, as I like spicy to be spicy.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you like it!