This Chicken Seasoning Blend is an all-in-one blend of herbs and spices that will add tons of flavor to your favorite poultry dishes. This recipe is a must for folks who rely on store-bought stuff for seasoning their chicken. It’s all-natural, more flavorful than the jarred stuff, and contains ingredients you already have at home.

What is Chicken Seasoning?

Chicken seasoning is a blend of 12 herbs and spices- so, yes, one more than the Colonel- added to poultry to flavor it. This spice blend is not just for chicken, though. You can use it on other poultry, pork, and seafood, or even use it to season your veggies.

How Do I Make Chicken Seasoning?

To make this recipe, you need kosher salt, cayenne pepper, paprika, ground coriander, ground mustard, Accent, or MSG (totally optional), granulated garlic and onion powders, rubbed sage, black pepper, dried thyme leaves, and ground cumin.

You will mix everything in a mixing bowl and transfer it to a glass jar or similar storage container with a tight-fitting lid.

Can I Swap Out Any of These Herbs and Spices?

The great thing about making your chicken seasoning blend at home is that you can adjust the spices and herbs to make your own unique version. You can swap out the rubbed sage and thyme for similar ingredients like oregano and crushed rosemary. Replace the regular paprika in this recipe with smoked, hot, or sweet paprika instead. You can add more cayenne pepper for a spicy chicken seasoning or omit it if you’re not big on spice. Reduce the salt if you’re on a low sodium diet. You can add dried lemon peel for a lemon seasoning or a combination of fruit peels for a citrus version.

Accent gives this chicken seasoning blend more umami flavor. Because I know some people have an aversion to MSG, you can omit this and not lose any flavor.

Since Accent also contains sodium, don’t go overboard, adding more than the recipe calls for. If you do, your chicken seasoning is likely to be too salty.

This recipe is super-easy. Dump all of the ingredients in a 2-quart mixing bowl.

How Do I Keep My Chicken Seasoning From Clumping?

Use a small whisk or spoon to stir everything in the bowl until evenly blended.

The best way to keep homemade spice blends from clumping is to add a food-safe silica gel packet to the mixture before storing it. Since you’re probably splitting the recipe between one or more jars, get enough packets to add to the jars. Add one packet to each jar you use.

Use a funnel to pour your spice blend into a glass jar, which is non-porous and won’t allow air in or out. Seal the jar with a tight-fitting lid and store it until you’re ready to use it in your recipes.

What’s the Best Way to Store Spice Blends?

Store your chicken seasoning blend in that glass jar in a cool, dark place.

Light and heat are the enemies of spice blends, so you want to keep yours in a dark pantry. A cabinet is fine, so long as it’s not above the stove. The stove emits heat that will warm up the spices, causing them to lose their potency faster.

Don’t refrigerate spice blends as that causes moisture to develop inside the jar when you take it out of the fridge. Likewise, storing the chicken seasoning blend above stoves where boiling might occur causes the spices to swell up with moisture. Eventually, that moisture turns to mold and ruins your spice blends.

How Long Can I Store Spice Blends?

You can store chicken seasoning blend for up to one year if you make it with fresh herbs and spices.

If you’re making it with open herbs and spices, store it for only nine months at the longest. Six months is best when using opened herbs and spices, though. The longer the spices have been open, the more potency of flavor they lose. As a result, the overall flavor they give to your foods will be less impressive.

How Do I Use It In Recipes?

Use 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of chicken seasoning blend per pound of meat. Simply sprinkle the spice blend over the meat and cook right away or allow it to marinate in the seasoning overnight.

Can I Use It On Other Types of Poultry?

You can totally use this chicken seasoning blend on many other types of poultry. It’s great to use on turkey, duck, and cornish hens in addition to chicken. You can also use it on pork, seafood, fish, and vegetables.

Use the same amount as you would for chicken or 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons per pound of meat. Because vegetables are more delicate than proteins, decrease the amount you use to only 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons per pound.

What Other Recipes Can I Use This Chicken Seasoning In?

This chicken seasoning blend isn’t just for chicken. Use it in place of the spices and herbs in your other recipes. Here are the recipes where I use it most:

Let’s free ourselves from the store-bought spice blend madness. Give this Chicken Seasoning Blend a try, and let me know what you think in the comments below.