Denny O's Taco Seasoning

To add to Sharon’s post,
CREAMY TACO PASTA

Here is our take on a homemade taco seasoning mix. Something for ya to play with.
The difference is quality seasonings without the fillers. AND I add home ground meat that I grind with a mix of 3 whole muscle cuts from the chuck, brisket and sirloin.

Denny O’s Taco Seasoning

1 pd Ground beef add to each pound of gr. beef the following:

4 tsp Chili Powder – (medium or hot to your liking)
1-1/2 tsp Cumin Powder
1/2 tsp Paprika
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp Onion Powder
1/8 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Cayenne
1/2 cup water

Brown ground beef then drain and add water and seasoning mix as normal. simmer 1/2 hour or so.

All Seasoning Measurements are in teaspoons (tsp)
Meat in per pound weight
Water in volume per 1/2 cup

Thank you! I’ll give it a try sometime soon.

We multiply this recipe by 8 times. Then thoroughly mix and weigh it it grams. Quarter it out for 2 pound ground meat batches and store the batch mix in separate small zip baggies.

This looks great. I will try it. Thank you

Nice. I use a similar recipe and usually have a Tupperware container of the stuff in the pantry.

4 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp paprika
2 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp black pepper

If this is as good as Famous Denny O’s BBQ Sauce…I’m in!!

Thanks Brian.

I’ve yet to meet a bad cook from Iowa! We’ll be trying this. Thanks.

I’m going to try this, thanks for posting! Currently we just buy big jugs of taco seasoning from Costco, it’s not bad but certainly room for improvement.

Good recipe. I like that it doesn’t contain extra salt or MSG, unlike commercial seasoning mixes.

Thanks guys.
Ralph, looks like yours has seriously more seasoning and definitely more heat. Is your recipe added to one pound of ground beef? If it’s for 2 pounds then we are similar but yours has a bit more kick stand to it. Nice!

Denny O wrote:

Ralph, looks like yours has seriously more seasoning and definitely more heat. Is your recipe added to one pound of ground beef?

Oh, gosh no. I don’t really measure, but I probably use about 2 tbsp of the seasoning mix for a pound of ground beef. If you’re just making it up at the time of use, cut those measurements by a factor of 4.
I also generally leave the crushed red pepper out these days because my kids are wimps.

I make up taco seasoning in big batches. I go into the Hispanic food section and get a couple different ground chilies and get my cumin seeds there and grind that up. Way different chili profile, not hot at all. I also add white pepper. I also use it for chili.

This looks awesome.

You guys don’t happen to have a recipe for a spaghetti seasoning by chance??

It’s getting really hard to find the Mccormick brand italian spaghetti seasoning and I cringe at generic versions.

Glenn, I just make mine from scratch.
When canning tomatoes, I’mm make pint jars of tomato sauce and stuff some fresh basil in them. my sauce will have a little citric acid and a touch of sugar (only enough to balance the acid).
My skettie swauce will consist of whole maders (canned), tomato paste, my swauce, seasonings are dried basil, thyme, marjoram, fresh riced garlic, occasional oregano (used only supposedly for pizza sauce) grated parmesan cheese and evoo.

Brad Dimond wrote:

Good recipe. I like that it doesn’t contain extra salt or MSG, unlike commercial seasoning mixes.

Brad, most all seasoning mixes for beef or pork has 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon per pound of ground meat, this is 1/2 of that.

Chomps, We buy almost all of our seasonings from our local Penzeys. I like the grind size and the options that they give me. some of there products are no better and not less than the ones I buy at the grocers. there are a few seasoning blends that we die for.

For instance, McCormicks seems to have a better pickling spice for a less but I can’t purchase juniper berries anywhere else locally! Tones is right here 45 minutes north in Ames but meh. They are ok for a short run, most all are the small coin sized containers.
Yes I purchase the whole seed pods too and we will fresh grind as well.

Ralph Wiggum wrote:

I also generally leave the crushed red pepper out these days because my kids are wimps.

Ralph, all I can suggest is eat it as much as you like while you can, young man.
A day may come when you will pay dearly for some of your past pleasures. Just a little helpful advice.

By the way there used to be an Asian restaurant that I frequented at my home town. They had a dish called “The Angry Dish”. If you ate the whole dish you would get a laminated card that allowed you either 10 or 15% off all of your personal purchases.

So I rolled in one day for lunch and that dish was on my mind. The lady owner asked how hot would I like it, I in return said “You fix it I’ll eat it”. Well I believe you know the outcome

I received my card good at both locations that they had, one was at my home town just 20 ish miles South of here and the other was downtown here in the Capital city. This was most likely 30 years ago.