This copycat Everything But the Elote seasoning blend recipe provides an alternative homemade version to the popular Trader Joe's variety for when the real deal is unavailable.
Trader Joe's has a lot of unique seasoning blends to get excited about, and this is one of them! It's salty and sweet, with hints of corn, cheese, and chili powder, designed to be used in the absence of elotes so that you may similarly season other foods with the traditional flavors of elote, including chili powder, lime, and parmesan cheese.
By the way, elotes means "corn" in Spanish, but also refers to a specific corn preparation. Elotes as a dish refers to grilled corn on the cob that gets slathered with mayo and/or crema and showered with crumbly cotija cheese, chili powder, lime juice, and cilantro. It's a sweet, savory, tangy, spicy experience in every bite!
But this unique elote seasoning isn't just for corn! My current favorite use for this homemade seasoning blend is to apply it to grilled chicken, like these juicy grilled chicken thighs. Oh, and these Elote-style pickle spears are the perfect destination for this elote seasoning.
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Why You'll Love This Recipe
- No fillers. Making your own homemade seasoning means no weird fillers or preservatives or calling for niche ingredients you may only use once. This is an added bonus for those managing food allergies.
- Control over flavor. Homemade seasonings lend themselves well to slight adjustments so you can create a mix that suits your tastes. Don't want to add salt, for example? Perfectly fine to leave it out!
- Makes a thoughtful gift. Maybe you know a special someone who would love this seasoning blend, but they don't live near a Trader Joe's. Make this for them! By the way, if you love homemade seasoning mixes, you have to try this low sodium taco seasoning, this awesome fajita seasoning, or this Italian-forward porketta seasoning.
Jump to:
- Summarize and Save with
- Why You'll Love This Recipe
- Thoughts on Creating a Copycat Seasoning Recipe
- Ingredients
- How To Make Everything But the Elote Seasoning - Directions
- Top Tips for the BEST Homemade Everything But the Elote Seasoning
- Recipe FAQs
- Check out these other homemade seasonings
- Everything But the Elote Seasoning (Trader Joe's Copycat)
Thoughts on Creating a Copycat Seasoning Recipe
It can be fun and challenging to create a copycat recipe. Fun because it's thrilling to figure out how to recreate deliciousness at home and challenging because the home cook is always at a disadvantage when it comes to more exotic ingredients. Like "natural flavor". These are some of my thoughts that led to the resulting copycat recipe, starting with the ingredient list.
TJ's Everything But the Elote Seasoning Ingredients
This is the ingredient list you will find on the back of a jar of Trader Joe's Everything But the Elote seasoning.
CANE SUGAR, SEA SALT, CORN FLOUR, CHILE PEPPER, PARMESAN CHEESE (MILK, SALT, CHEESE CULTURES, ENZYMES, DISODIUM PHOSPHATE), CHIPOTLE POWDER, NATURAL FLAVOR, CITRIC ACID (ACIDULANT), DRIED CILANTRO, ORGANIC RICE FIBER, CUMIN POWDER.
In attempting to recreate a homemade version, my primary goal was to create a seasoning that tastes as close to Trader Joe's as possible. But I also wanted it to look similar in color and have a similar applicability when applied to foods.
I took a good, long look at the ingredients. Having done some research on food labels, I know that the ingredient that weighs the most is listed first. Not surprisingly, the ingredient that weighs the least gets listed last. To nail a homemade version, I focused primarily on the first 6 ingredients - cane sugar, sea salt, corn flour, chile pepper, parmesan cheese, and chipotle powder - because they make up the base flavors of the seasoning (they weigh the most).
Sweet, Sweet Elote!
This is a sweet, sugar-forward seasoning, as evidenced by the fact that cane sugar is listed first in the ingredient list. The sugar is also evident when tasting the seasoning directly - which I insist you do even though it's kind of yucky. Sugar is often included in small amounts to provide a touch of sweetness to traditional elote seasonings.
The name Everything but the Elote implies it has all of the flavors of an elote without its presence, meaning that the corn flavor is included. This makes it unique from other elote seasonings, which do not compensate for the flavor of the corn. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't quite replicate the corny sweetness of Trader Joe's; I suspect the "natural flavor" could be corn.
You could leave the corn flour out, as admittedly it doesn't add flavor, but what it does add makes it worth advocating for its inclusion; corn flour promotes stickability, crispability, and balance. The corn flour helps the spice mix stick to food, making it ideal for coating proteins like chicken. Corn flour (especially the fine corn flour I use here) lightly crisps up when cooked, promoting a pleasing texture when pan-frying, air frying, or baking. Corn flour also does a great job of cutting seasoning blends so they don't wind up tasting too harsh, which I found especially helpful as recipes with chili powder can be challenging to get right.
Ingredients
Let's take a closer look a the ingredients that made the cut, the ingredients that didn't, and practical substitutions to achieve similar-tasting results.
Included Ingredients
- Cane sugar - Use cane sugar if you've got it, otherwise, go ahead and use granulated sugar, which is what I usually do.
- Sea salt - Arguably one of the most important ingredients, salt is a must here! But you can keep it dialed back because of the inclusion of salty Parmesan.
- Corn flour - I recommend adding corn flour for several reasons (stickability, crispability, and balance), especially if this seasoning blend is destined for foods that aren't corn or corn-based. It also helps with flavor balance. Otherwise, feel free to leave it out (especially if you don't have it on hand, no need to make a special purchase!).
- Chile pepper - Since chile pepper is listed as an ingredient, I interpreted this to mean 100% pure ground dried chile, from a specific type of pepper, without added salt or other spices. It's not the same as chili powder used for chili con carne, which often contains other ingredients like garlic salt, cumin, onion powder, etc.. Despite this, I decided to include chili powder because I know you all have that squirreled away in your spice drawer. If you don't want to use chili powder, try replacing it with paprika.
- Parmesan cheese - NOT fresh, choose the shelf-stable pre-ground Parmesan. Since you really should refrigerate Parmesan cheese once you open the container, I recommend leaving it out initially if you don't plan on using the entire amount within, say a week or two. You could also experiment with nutritional yeast, which does not require refrigeration, instead of using Parmesan to mimic that salty umami flavor.
- Chipotle chili powder - LOVE the smoky, spicy flavors of ground chipotle chili powder, which comes about from the drying and smoking process as jalapeno peppers are transformed into the lovely powder.
- Citric acid - I don't keep citric acid on hand. So I Googled substitutes for citric acid. Fortunately, I wound up down a Reddit wormhole where I discovered that a product called True Lime exists. You shake it onto things, and it tastes refreshingly tart like lime - because that's what it's made of, crystallized lime and citric acid, boom, full circle! For me, this is a product I have happily used more than once; it's an easy way to add lime flavor to existing seasoning blends like taco seasoning and ranch seasoning.
- Cumin - One of my personal favorite seasonings, ground cumin brings a slightly citrus-y earthiness that is super welcome against the heat from chile peppers.
Excluded Ingredients
- Natural flavor - What the natural flavor is isn't disclosed. Rather than speculate, I chose to ignore this and not replace it with an additional ingredient.
- Dried cilantro - I left this out; I hate cilantro and in my opinion it doesn't add anything. But if you must add it, try adding starting with ½ teaspoon.
- Organic rice fiber - I don't even know what the heck that is, so it had to go. Really tho, it's a tasteless addition that prevents seasoning blends from clumping.
A full ingredient list with exact amounts can be found in the recipe card below - keep scrolling!
How To Make Everything But the Elote Seasoning - Directions
- Step 1: Add all ingredients to a lidded container, like this cute 'lil Mason jar.
- Step 2: Shake, shake, shake to combine.
Note: If you don't plan on using all of the seasoning right away, leave the Parmesan out until ready to use as Parmesan should be refrigerated.
The seasoning turns orange over time (within a day or two). The seasoning on the right is 1 week old and the seasoning on the right was freshly made for the camera.
Top Tips for the BEST Homemade Everything But the Elote Seasoning
Tip 1. Start with the ingredient list. I encourage you to prioritize cane sugar, sea salt, corn flour, chile pepper (chili powder), parmesan cheese, and chipotle powder - because they make up the base flavors of the seasoning. Don't stress over trying to recreate every single ingredient, especially the obscure ones like "natural flavor". And as always, tweak it to suit your tastes. I'll always be a cilantro hater, but add some dried cilantro if that trips your trigger.
Tip 2. Taste it plain. Okay, tasting seasoning plain - meaning not sprinkled on food and rather sprinkled directly into your mouth - isn't the greatest experience, BUT it will tell you if you are on the right track. Especially if you also have a jar of the Trader Joe's Everything But the Elote on hand to compare to, like I did in creating this recipe. Tasting plain will let you determine if the mix is too sweet, salty, or spicy - allowing you to make adjustments.
Recipe FAQs
I love using this seasoning on chicken, it's my favorite! But it's also great on pork and pinto beans. You could also use it to season everything from roasted broccoli to sweet potatoes, and even snacks like French fries or popcorn. I bet it would also make a great dip stirred into sour cream, mmm.
For best results, store the seasoning (sans Parmesan) in a lidded container in a cool, dark place for up to 6 months - 1 year. Did I mention that this is without Parmesan for food safety reasons?*
Now, I know what you may be thinking, but sorry, the refrigerator is not a good place to store seasonings because it is super humid in there. And moisture is quite counterproductive to preserving seasonings.
If you want a complete seasoning mix you don't have to worry about adding Parmesan cheese to, you could also experiment with nutritional yeast instead to mimic that salty umami flavor. Nutritional yeast does not require refrigeration.
*I will often make a batch of this seasoning and use it within 2 weeks because I like playing fast and loose like that. Do so at your own risk.
I recommend using chili powder (the kind used for making hearty bowls of chili) and chipotle because I think they get you close to the flavor of Trader Joe's recipe. You could swap out the chipotle powder in this recipe and swap in ancho or guajillo for a unique spin.
Check out these other homemade seasonings
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these out.
If you tried this Everything But the Elote Seasoning Trader Joe's Copycat recipe (or any other recipe on Midwexican), please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it turned out in the 📝 comments below!
Everything But the Elote Seasoning (Trader Joe's Copycat)
Equipment
- small Mason jar (to mix and store seasoning)
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 2 ½ tablespoons Parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon corn flour
- ½ teaspoon chipotle chili powder
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 ½ teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon True Lime, crystallized lime (or citric acid)
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a lidded container, like a small Mason jar or reuse an old mix container.Note: If you don't plan on using all of the seasoning within a few days, leave the Parmesan out.
- Shake, shake, shake to combine.
Mary Davis says
I was desperate for the TJ Elote seasoning, and yours had the most consistent ingredients of the original. I'm from south Texas. The only changes I made were adding a tablespoon of smoked paprika, 1 extra teaspoon of sugar, and I found a garlic-parm popcorn seasoning that I added 2 tablespoons of, omitting parmesan and salt. I think I like the stickiness and flavor better than TJ's, and other tasters found it very close. This is shelf-stable like the original too, so I now can get a bigger batch made. Thank you so much for the recipe!
Christina Koncker says
Add a few dashes of cayenne pepper for a spicy kick!