Blackened Seasoning Blend

One of the best ways to eat healthy and stick with it is to add spices and flavors to your food.  Without spice, flavor, and variety, you will surely become bored and start craving other foods… and probably less healthy ones.  I like this Blackened Seasoning Blend because it’s so easy, so fast, makes no mess, and really adds flavor to protein.  Plain grilled chicken, salmon, beef, or shrimp can easily get boring fast.  And if you’ve gone to a paleo lifestyle, you’re eating more proteins than you’re probably used to.  Therefore, you will likely be looking for ideas to keep it exciting.  If you add some Blackened Seasoning Blend before you grill or sear your protein, it will taste like a whole new dish.

My go-to dinner recipe last summer was Blackened Salmon over Caesar Salad.  It will definitely be a future post.  (Update 5/12/2015 it IS a post now: Blackened Salmon Caesar Salad!)  It was a simple, quick, satisfying meal with easy clean-up on those busy days when I still wanted to go work out and make a great dinner after working all day.  I was lucky to be sitting on a freezer full of Alaskan Salmon thanks to a co-worker.  The sales team I was working on at that time in the Northwest included Alaska.  At our monthly manager’s meeting last August, Joe, the manager from Alaska, showed up with two coolers of vacuum sealed Alaskan Salmon.  A whole fish filleted for everyone!  We had no clue.  It was a total treat.

Sitting on a glorious bounty of salmon in the freezer, I mixed up a big batch of Blackened Seasoning Blend kept it in the spice cabinet, and pulled them out for easy meals.  We ate like kings for weeks.

To make a blackened crust, start by making sure your protein is dry.  For example, if you’re using chicken or scallops that come out of the wrapping with some slimy/ watery juice, you don’t need to rinse that off.  Just take a paper towel and pat dry the protein.  Then use 1 teaspoon of Blackened Seasoning per 4 oz. of raw protein.  Sprinkle it evenly on one side of the protein, and use your fingers to evenly distribute the seasoning, patting it down onto the protein.  Then heat up your fat of choice (like coconut oil or ghee) in a sauté pan over medium to medium-high heat.  Place the protein seasoned side down in the hot pan and do not move it around of flip it for about 3-4 minutes.  Then flip and cook the other side of the protein.  It usually only takes a couple more minutes, depending on the thickness of your meat or fish.