To make a house all-purpose seasoning, whisk four tablespoons of coarse salt with two tablespoons each of black pepper and garlic powder, and one tablespoon each of onion powder and paprika. Shake it on everything headed for heat, and adjust the next batch to your table.
What is all-purpose seasoning?
Every kitchen that cooks daily eventually invents this jar, because measuring salt, pepper, and garlic separately onto every chicken thigh is a tax on weeknights. The barbecue world calls the core SPG, salt, pepper, garlic, and the house blend is that trio plus whatever your kitchen reaches for anyway: onion, paprika for color, maybe thyme or celery seed.
The recipe matters less than the calibration. The first batch follows the ratio, the second batch follows your table: less salt if you cook for kids, cayenne if you do not, smoked paprika if the grill is your main burner. That is why the jar earns the name house blend.
What goes in all-purpose seasoning?
- ·4 tbsp coarse salt (kosher-style)
- ·2 tbsp coarse black pepper
- ·2 tbsp garlic powder
- ·1 tbsp onion powder
- ·1 tbsp paprika (smoked if you grill)
- ·Optional: 1 tsp dried thyme, 1 tsp celery seed, 1/4 tsp cayenne
Four salt, two pepper, two garlic, one onion, one paprika, by volume with a coarse salt. If you switch to fine salt, halve it, fine salt packs double the sodium per spoon and the jar will over-season everything.
How do you make all-purpose seasoning?
- Whisk everything until the paprika is evenly distributed.
- Jar with a shaker lid, label it with the date and your ratio, future you will want to tweak it.
- Use it anywhere you would salt and pepper before cooking: about a teaspoon per pound of meat, a couple of shakes for a tray of vegetables.
- Taste one batch of roasted potatoes with it and adjust the next jar, the blend is a draft, always.
What should you know before making all-purpose seasoning?
- It is a before-heat blend. For finishing at the table, keep flaky salt separate, this jar reads dusty on finished food.
- Note your changes on the label, house blends improve by iteration, not memory.
- It makes cooking honest: if dinner tastes flat with this on it, the problem was heat or time, not seasoning.
Where did all-purpose seasoning come from?
Seasoned salts are the oldest convenience food in the spice aisle, and the family jar with a recipe taped to the cabinet is older than any of the brands, which mostly bottled what home cooks were already mixing.
What can you make from all-purpose seasoning?
Common questions.
What is in all-purpose seasoning?
Salt, black pepper, and garlic powder as the spine, usually with onion powder and paprika, sometimes herbs, celery seed, or a whisper of cayenne. Everything past the first three is house preference.
How much all-purpose seasoning per pound?
About a teaspoon per pound of meat with this salt ratio, applied before cooking. Vegetables take a couple of shakes with oil before roasting.
Why make it instead of buying seasoned salt?
Control of the salt line, no anti-caking starch, no sugar, and a ratio tuned to your own table after two batches. Also it costs about a fifth as much.