Quite often people hear the words healthy food and they immediately think of tasteless, hospital like food, but the reality is that you can make delicious food that is also healthy and good for the whole family. Coming from a Spanish background, I was raised with food made with homemade seasoning better known as sazon or sofrito which is a concoction of different natural ingredients that would add lots of flavor to pretty much any meat and other foods.
There are many ways to make the sazon and people often add different things as it is something you can tweak pretty easy.
Today I am sharing with you a little family recipe and the way I make my sazon!
There are no preservers, and all the ingredients I use are natural ingredients and will go amazingly with many different dishes and recipes.
I love cooking from scratch ( also easier than you think), and many of my recipes include sazon, so I thought I would start by sharing the way to make the sazon.
To make this “sazon latino” or sofrito, you will need some fresh ingredients like cilantro, onions, scallions, celery, garlic, lemon, tomato ( optional), cubanelle peppers ( these are non- spicy peppers also known as the Cuban pepper), red or yellow sweet peppers, oregano, salt and pepper.
All the ingredients can be added to the concoction as desired as there is no specific measurement as of how much of each ingredient to add as it is more of a personal preference.
In my particular case I usually use 1 to 1 ½ bunches of cilantro, 2- 3 red onions, as much garlic as you would like, a bunch of scallions, 2-3 lemons or limes if you do not have lemons, you can substitude with apple vinegar , 2-3 large Cubanelle peppers, 1-2 yellow, orange or red pepper, 1 or two celery stalk ( also optional you add or subtract to see which you like best), 2-3 tomatoes and salt. ( Cubanelle peppers, are bit expensive right now, so I substituted with red and yellow peppers).
As a personal preference, I add a small amount of salt as I can always add more salt to the food if it is needed.
With these ingredients, we ( my mom and me), usually make enough for a whole month, and we use it pretty often so this would give you an idea how much ingredients to use and how much sazon you get out of it.
Let’s get started!
Wash all the ingredients thoroughly and cut. If you are using a blender, cut into small pieces, if you are using a food processor, you do not need to cut the pieces as small.
Add ingredients and leave the salt, fresh cracked pepper and oregano for last. Make sure to taste as you add them, as this helps you decide if you need to add more and you can adjust to your taste.
Tip:
I always use sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, my preference is mixed (multi-color pepper corns) pepper for extra flavor.
One other thing you can do is to have two different sazons…Split the mix and add the pepper and oregano to half of it and that gives you a chance to try the difference, both are very tasty but some people might not like the pepper and oregano.
The final result is a thin pesto like sauce that will be thinner if blended on a blender or a bit thicker if you used a food processor, either one is fine.
The sazon can be used as a base when cooking chicken, pork, beef…And a must when making beans from scratch!
Once the sauce is made, it saves a lot of time as all you need to do is add your sazon to whatever you are cooking.
Most Dominicans use a sazon for their daily cooking.
The sazon will last you for a few weeks as long as it is refrigerated. The color might change a bit but as long as it doesn’t turn sour it is good to use.
Since all the ingredients are natural they are healthier for you!
Stay tuned for easy and delicious way to use your sazon!
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