Make Your Own Pantry Staples Series: Homemade Taco Seasoning

Looking for an easy, frugal, and yummy homemade taco seasoning recipe? You’ve come to the right place! Our family loves Mexican food, so I was excited the day I figured out that I could make my own taco seasoning for less than I could buy those little packets. I’m going to show you how you can make your own homemade Taco Seasoning, and I promise you’ll love it!

Tacos are on a weekly or bi-weekly rotation around our house.  It’s one of those meals that everyone agrees upon. Therefore, it’s one of my go-to dinners because I know everyone will be happy (and some nights, that’s all I care about). 

Before I dive into this recipe, I wanted to share one of my favorite guides for saving money that I know you’ll love! My passion is to help stay at home moms save as much money as possible so you can afford the stay at home mom life. Trust me, you will want this guide – my Get It Free Checklist!

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Homemade Taco Seasoning Tastes Better

Yes, I know you can buy a small packet of taco seasoning all ready to go at the store – but the below recipe that I found on Pinterest from Tshanina Peterson, a few years ago makes the best tasting tacos! When you make it in bulk, it cuts down on the price! 

Homemade Taco Seasoning Recipe

1/2 cup chili powder
1/4 cup onion powder
1/8 cup ground cumin
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon sea salt

Mix all the ingredients together and store in an airtight container up to six months.

Save Money When You Double The Recipe

I personally like to double, triple or even quadruple this recipe, as we go through it pretty quickly.  One other yummy secret is to replace the water with tomato sauce when you mix the seasoning. The tomato sauce kicks the flavors up a notch! Yummy!

I store my taco seasoning in a cute container right on my counter – which means we use it a lot! I don’t like stuff cluttering my kitchen, only necessary items take up any countertop real estate in my house!

How To Save Money When Buying Spices:

You will cut down on the price of this recipe by finding your spices at the lowest price you can.  Check your local grocery store first.  My local store, King Soopers, sells basic 2oz spices for $1, which is a decent deal – but I’ll warn you, the one spice that King Soopers doesn’t sell for $1 is Cumin – it’s not considered one of the basic spices. 

My local Safeway store rarely has spices for a $1 or less, so I don’t usually buy spices here.  Every now and then they sell them for a nice BOGO deal (Buy One Get One), but that is very rare. 

If you have a local Dollar store, I’d suggest trying there.  My local Dollar Tree sells some very basic spices for $1 and they are bigger – 3 oz!  Again, I can’t find all 5 spices here, but I can find a couple of them – like Chili Powder, Onion Powder and Garlic Powder. 

Don’t Buy Fancy Shaped Spice Bottles

Something else to keep in mind: the name brand spices, like McCormick, have fancy shaped bottles that make them look like they are bigger.  Pay attention to the actual size printed on the label.  Some of the bottles look bigger, but are actually less ounces than the a normal shaped bottle.  The ounces do matter when calculating prices! 

I shop around and make mental notes of where to get things the cheapest, I will even make notes on my Note app in my phone just so I can remember the best place to find stuff.  I promise, it will get much easier to remember where to find the cheapest price on things you buy.

Try to find a way that you can best help yourself remember – take notes, or a take photos of the item and the price. Do whatever works best for you. Eventually you will start to remember!

Other Make Your Own Pantry & Cleaning Staples Recipes:

1. Katrina’s Homemade Granola
2. Katrina’s Homemade Refried Beans
3. Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner
4. Healthy Balsamic Lime Salad Dressing

Go ahead and give these recipes a try and let me know what you think!  Way to go! You will be saving your family money as you make your own pantry staples!

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Photo by Calum Lewis on Unsplash