This is a copycat recipe for Trader Joe’s seasoning blend, and other umami spice blends available at many grocery stores. I couldn’t find a similar blend locally (we don’t have Trader Joe’s), so I found a picture of the label and am running with the ingredients listed there (while making a few adjustments). The ratios of each spice are of course unknown, so I played around with my own and ended up landing on a blend that seems to work really well in my recipes. The Trader Joe’s bottle has salt as the first listed ingredient, so I also wanted to try one with minimal or no salt. This blend is still really flavorful without all that salt.
So what are you going to use this for? Well, it’s great for ramen soup, which recipe is coming up later this week. I finally cracked the ramen soup code and made a “proper one” and WOW. It’s going into the regular rotation. So this blend is a good one to have on hand if you want to make ramen soup. It is also great for adding to popcorn, stews, and broths in general.
This recipe makes about 60g of dry spice.
Umami Spice Blend
Ingredients
- 3 Tbsp porcini mushroom powder See notes.
- 2 Tbsp mushroom blend powder Or white button mushroom powder. See notes.
- 3 Tbsp onion powder
- 1 Tbsp yellow mustard powder
- 1 Tbsp jalapeño pepper powder Sub crushed crushed red pepper, chipotle powder, etc
- 2 tsp thyme Dried spice.
- 1 tsp black pepper Or sub white pepper for a different flavor profile!
- 1/2 tsp sea salt Optional.
Instructions
- If applicable, grind dried mushrooms in a coffee grinder until it's a find powder.
- Add all ingredients to a bowl, and mix thoroughly.
- Store in an airtight container, such as an old spice bottle.
Notes
Changes, swaps, and alternatives
You can find mushroom powder or dried mushrooms easily online, and many grocery stores carry specific types of dried mushrooms. They are really easy to find: I found my bottles down the road out in a semi-rural area on an island. The Trader Joe’s bottle indicates white button mushroom powder, which I could not find locally so I used a general “forest mushroom” blend that turned out really well. I do recommend trying to find porcini mushrooms if you can. 1/2 cup of dry mushrooms makes about 1/4 cup of powder.
I found my jalapeno pepper spice locally at a standard grocery store. If you can’t find something like this, use a different chili based spice – the Trader Joe’s blend uses red chili flakes, which are standard in any grocery store. Grind them up if desired.
Omit the salt if you are SOS-free.
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Greer
Thanks for “doing the work” to reproduce TJ’s mushroom seasoning. I’ve been on a plant based diet for almost a year having been diagnosed with kidney disease. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find the transition not nearly as difficult as I expected. But, the limit on sodium has been tough for this former salt freak!
I so often find prepared food that works for a low salt diet but is just too expensive, but I’m a gigantic failure in my efforts to reverse engineer them. Thanks also for providing the nutritional information. Again, another big help for those like me who need to watch intake of certain foods.
Question: What’s the serving size for nutritional info. provided?
Jen @ PlantBasedRecipe
Hi Greer! Serving is about 1.5tsp. And thanks! So glad this was helpful 🙂
rick e echeverria
I noticed in your recipe salt is last on the list while on the TJ’s Unami list of ingredients salt is first on the list… mush difference in taste?
By the way I use ancient pink salt now because they are finding a lot of micro plastics in sea salt now a days…
Maïla
Great Umami mix. I used no salt (my husband and I prefer to adjust the salt -if we use any- as we cook instead of having it included on the mix), plus we used our own wild mushrooms that we picked last summer, and ground Chili flakes instead of jalapeño. Thanks for adapting this TJ recipe!