Best Homemade Taco Seasoning

We love this homemade taco seasoning recipe! Stop buying packets of taco seasoning mix and make this easy, homemade version instead.

homemade taco seasoning

We love homemade spice blends. We have already shared our recipe for chili powder. It tastes better than what you can buy at the store and is adaptable based on your tastes. This homemade taco seasoning is no different. Use this blend for tacos, burritos, roasted vegetables, and more. Let me show you how to make it.

How to Make Taco Seasoning

Taco seasoning is simple to make at home. In fact, you likely have most of the ingredients sitting in your spice cabinet right now. Here’s the spices you will need:

  • Chili powder — We recommend our homemade chili powder. Your favorite store-bought chili powder works, too.
  • Ground cumin — This adds an earthy, smoky flavor. It is common in Tex-Mex, Mexican, and curry recipes.
  • Hot smoked paprika — This adds a hot, smoky flavor. Chipotle chile powder is a great alternative.
  • Ground coriander — This adds a light, citrus flavor.
  • Cayenne pepper — This adds heat. Add as much or little as needed for your desired spice level.

Besides the spices, we add two secret ingredients:

Cornstarch — Store-bought taco seasoning packets include some kind of thickener. When cornstarch is mixed with liquid and heated, it creates a sauce for whatever you are using your taco seasoning for like ground meat or vegetables. It also helps the seasoning stick to whatever you are cooking.

Dried mushroom powder — I know this seems like it came out of nowhere, but it’s delicious. Trust me. Here’s an article talking all about it! We use mushrooms a lot in our cooking. They add a savory meatiness to dishes — even when those dishes don’t have any meat. Adding mushroom powder to our taco seasoning guarantees incredible flavor.

Have you ever heard someone talking about umami? It’s considered the fifth taste: there’s sweet, sour, salt, bitter, and umami. Umami is the taste that makes you smack your lips. It even translates to “delicious” or “yummy.” Mushrooms naturally add umami. Which is why we include the mushroom powder in our blend. It makes it taste better.

A jar of homemade Taco Seasoning

Make Taco Seasoning Better with Mushroom Powder

You can buy mushroom powder. Or, you can make your own. We’ve even shared this essential mushroom powder seasoning you can make at home. Here’s the basic process for making your own:

Dried mushrooms in a blender

Start with dried mushrooms — any type of mushroom will work. We particularly love dried porcini mushrooms. They are sold in larger or specialty grocery stores, or buy online. Throw the dried mushrooms into a blender and blend until ground. Store in a spice jar and use to your heart’s content.

How to Make Mushroom Powder

Now that you have mushroom powder, you can add it to your homemade taco seasoning.

Storing Homemade Taco Seasoning

Throw your homemade taco seasoning into a spice jar, shake it up, and store in a dark pantry up to six months.When you want to use it, add based on your taste. For 1 pound of meat (we usually go for turkey or pork), we add 1 to 2 tablespoons of taco seasoning.

Stop buying those packets of seasoning and make this easy, homemade version instead.

Best Homemade Taco Seasoning

  • PREP
  • TOTAL

This homemade taco seasoning tastes much better than anything you can buy at the store. Most ingredients are likely already sitting in your spice cabinet. The secret ingredient is mushroom powder. You can make you own (here’s our recipe), or buy it. The taco seasoning will still taste great without it, but if you can include it we highly recommend it. Also, the amount of cayenne pepper is up to you. We call for 1/2 teaspoon, which makes the spice blend a mild to medium heat level.

Makes approximately 6 tablespoons

You Will Need

2 tablespoons chili powder, we recommend our homemade blend

1 tablespoon ground cumin

2 teaspoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 teaspoons mushroom powder, optional, here’s our recipe

1 ½ teaspoons hot smoked paprika

1 ½ teaspoons ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or more based on how spicy you want the mix

Directions

    1Add ingredients to a spice jar. Seal the jar then shake. Store the taco seasoning in a dark pantry up to 6 months.

    2Add the seasoning to dishes based on your taste. For 1 pound of meat, we add 1 to 2 tablespoons of taco seasoning.

Adam and Joanne's Tips

  • How to Make Mushroom Powder: Here’s our detailed mushroom powder recipe!
  • Nutrition Facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values.

If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #inspiredtaste — We love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste

Nutrition Per Serving Serving Size 1 tablespoon / Calories 20 / Protein 1 g / Carbohydrate 4 g / Dietary Fiber 2 g / Total Sugars 0 g / Total Fat 1 g / Saturated Fat 0 g / Cholesterol 0 mg / Sodium 885 mg
AUTHOR:  Adam and Joanne Gallagher
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12 comments… Leave a Review
  • Steve in Warren, MI May 4, 2022, 2:23 pm

    This seasoning is fantastic! Made it couple weeks ago for our taco Tuesday thing, including the dried mushroom powder, which I reviewed separately.. this here is a seriously awesome find for me! Certainly using this for my Cinco de Mayo thing tomorrow.. thanks, guys!

    Reply
    • Joanne September 13, 2023, 6:56 pm

      This is wonderful, Steve! So happy you found our recipe.

      Reply
  • Mood Ahmed October 17, 2020, 4:42 pm

    Thanks a lot for sharing such nice recipes.I look forward to many more of your recipes.

    Reply
    • Joanne September 13, 2023, 6:56 pm

      You are very welcome!

      Reply
  • Sami V. May 30, 2019, 8:07 pm

    Made this seasoning tonight for tacos, minus the salt and dried mushroom powder. It was so good! Very similar to the commercial taco seasoning from stores, not as salty. We eat our tacos as salad with salty chips so didn’t notice the lack of salt there, but would if it was part of a recipe or without salty chips or whatever. I have made other homemade taco seasoning mixes and they were a completely different taste, waaaay too spicy and generally disappointing. Keeping this recipe for sure and if I can find dried mushrooms will it with that next time!

    Reply
    • Joanne September 13, 2023, 6:58 pm

      What wonderful news, Sami! We do hope that you get the chance to try this with the mushroom powder added. If you loved the recipe without it, we know you will be over the moon after adding it. Happy cooking!

      Reply
  • Bev August 22, 2016, 9:14 pm

    I’d like to try this to get away from the high sodium in packaged taco seasoning. When cooking it with ground turkey do you add a cup of water and let it simmer like the directions on packaged seasoning?

    Reply
    • Adam August 23, 2016, 1:17 pm

      Yes, we do add a little water. I don’t usually need the whole cup, but since we have added the cornstarch to the mix the sauce will thicken just like the packaged seasoning. I’d start with 1/3 cup and add from there as needed.

      Reply
  • Gen August 20, 2016, 5:50 am

    I have shied away from the packaged seasoning mixes because of the overwhelming sodium. (Salt restricted diet!) This solves THAT problem and it tastes so much better than the commercial variety. Thank you for this!

    Reply
    • Joanne September 13, 2023, 6:56 pm

      We completely agree and actually find this homemade blend more flavorful than the packets at the store.

      Reply
  • Rhonda Rhodes August 19, 2016, 8:57 pm

    Sounds like a great addition! I will use your recipe the next time I make homemade taco seasoning. I make it in a bigger batch but I will just double this. This reminds me of a trick I learned from a friend’s mother who made homemade chili and always put a jar or can of mushrooms in drained…The texture they impart is great but no flavor. I always include either fresh or jarred mushrooms to my chili. A trick I do for taco meat is I add some cilantro stems at the beginning of cooking and raw spinach leaves in the last minute or so…Thanks for the nice tip!

    Reply
    • Joanne September 13, 2023, 6:57 pm

      Love all of your tips, Rhonda. Thank you for sharing them with us and we hope you enjoy the seasoning.

      Reply

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