House Seasoning

To bring out the best flavor in a dish, cooks around the world know that proper seasoning is essential. Adding flavor to your food can be somewhat intimidating but here’s a trick that I’ve used for years – I make my own house seasoning.  I keep my little red pot of this blend on my counter, right beside the salt and pepper.

“Mama salt” as it’s called in my house, is a combination of salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika. The key to its success, is in the proportions. I’ve found that the measurements I use are just right because you want the flavors to complement one another, not over power each other.

People ask me all the time what I use to season my dishes. Well, here it is. I just measure out the ingredients, mix it up and store it in my container. I like making my own instead of buying the pre-made stuff from the store because I like to control the amount of garlic and pepper in the mix with the majority of the blend being made up of salt.I use Mama Salt on most of my meats and fish to bring out their natural flavors. It’s especially yummy on burgers and in meatloaf. It’s absolutely wonderful on roasted veggies and I coat the outside of potatoes with it before baking them. Enhance ordinary breadcrumbs by adding a few sprinkles for an extra savory flavor. Another use my boys came up with is to add it to popcorn. It’s awesome! The dishes that you can use my house seasoning in are just about endless, so, get creative and start sprinkling.