Whole Foods' Tequila Lime Seasoning

   The hot sauce company Cholula is well known for their vinegary, spicy sauces.  A few years ago they made some dry-form seasonings to compliment their sauces, and my mom fell in love with the chili lime.  Apparently the product endeavor did not pan out for them and the dry-forms have been discontinued.  I kept telling my mom that we could make our own chili lime seasoning with some chili powder, cayenne, lime zest, and sea salt but for some reason she never wanted to do it.  She kept desperately searching for this now-nonexistent product.  Last week I found her substitute.

   Whole Foods may be a horribly pretentious company with the strict rules they apply to the products they allow in stores, but they do carry a fantastic array of meats, seafood, cheeses, produce, and specialty items.  (I will never pay such outrageous prices for dry goods I could get for less than half the price at WalMart....)  While we were waiting for our fish, I happened to look down and see the specialty seasoning blends that are bulk packaged in-house.  Even though it was labeled "Tequila Lime," it was easy to tell that chili powder is a main ingredient.  It had to be close to my mom's beloved chili lime.  The very nice and extremely helpful fishmonger gave me a 1.5 oz. sample of it for free.  We used it to season our turkey burgers a few nights later and it was delicious.

    The basic ingredients of this seasoning are salt, chili powder, cilantro, lime zest, garlic powder, and onion powder.  It is a universal blend that would honestly be good on just about anything from steak to rice.  Oh, and did I mention it is cheap?  Seriously, a Whole Foods product that is CHEAP!  You get 6 oz. for $2.99.  A decent seasoning salt or blend from the spice aisle is going to run you about $3.50 for 3-4 oz.  This blend is an absolute bargain!

Tip:

Because we used this in turkey burgers, I thought I'd give you a tip on how to keep your all-white meat ground turkey from drying out.  For every 1 lb of ground white meat turkey, grate in 1 medium sized carrot.  It adds a lovely hint of sweetness while keeping the meat moist and juicy.