Sazón Seasoning: What’s in the Packet, How It Differs from Homemade, and How to Use It

Sazón, the dry, salty seasoning used throughout Puerto Rican cooking, gets its red-orange color from annatto, a seed that’s there for color more than flavor. The flavor comes from the rest of the blend: salt, garlic, cumin, coriander and often MSG. In the US most people know it from Goya’s little foil packets, where MSG is listed first and two synthetic dyes help the annatto with the color. There’s no fixed recipe, though, and a homemade version lets you set the salt and skip the dyes.

At a glance

What is in it

There’s no single sazón recipe. The two lists below come from a manufacturer’s label and a bylined test-kitchen recipe, and neither one is “the” sazón.

The order is the big difference. On the Goya label, MSG comes first and salt second, with annatto near the end and sharing the color job with two synthetic dyes. In the test-kitchen recipe, achiote is the largest single ingredient and MSG is optional.

Goya’s own lineup shows how much “sazón” can vary. Besides Coriander and Annatto, its product page lists Sazón with Coriander and Tomato, with Garlic and Onion, with Saffron, without Annatto, and two low-sodium versions.¹ Read the box you’ve actually got.

Where the name and the packet come from

Sazón means “seasoning.” America’s Test Kitchen credits the blend Goya started making in the 1960s with spreading sazón’s popularity, and notes that many cooks in Puerto Rico later took pride in making their own.³ We couldn’t find anything documenting the dry blend’s earlier history, including the often-repeated idea that it started as a seasoning for stewed beans.

Flavor and the compounds behind it

Sazón tastes salty and savory first, then garlicky, with cumin’s warm earthiness and coriander’s citrusy note. Here’s what each component brings:

Annatto is there for color. Goya labels it “annatto (color).”¹ It comes from the seeds of Bixa orellana, a shrub native from Mexico to tropical South America. Its pigments are carotenoid derivatives, mainly bixin.⁷ Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages notes that dried seeds have a weak, perfumed smell, and in the Caribbean the seeds are usually fried in fat to color it.⁸ So the claim that annatto gives sazón a “peppery” flavor doesn’t hold up. Its job is the red-orange tint. In the Goya blend, Yellow 5 and Red 40 add to that color. For more, see annatto seeds and achiote powder.

How sazón is used

Goya’s directions are broad: meats, stews, soups, poultry, pasta, rice, beans and vegetables, at one packet for every four servings a recipe makes.² America’s Test Kitchen suggests its homemade blend for meat, bean and rice dishes.³ Goya’s product page links recipes including Colombian beef and pork empanadas and a chile-rubbed turkey.

Stir it into the cooking liquid for rice and beans, add it to stews and braises, or rub it on chicken or pork before roasting or grilling.

It’s salty, so count it as part of the salt in a recipe. Add the sazón, then taste before you add more salt. If you’re also using adobo seasoning, which is mostly salt too,¹ the two add up fast.

Buying and quality

Check the ingredient list for four things: where salt and MSG fall, whether the color comes from annatto alone or from Yellow 5 and Red 40 too, whether that version has annatto at all, and the sodium per serving. Goya’s packets list all of it on the box.

Making your own lets you skip the MSG and dyes and set the salt level yourself. The test-kitchen recipe above is one place to start.

Storage

America’s Test Kitchen just says to keep its homemade blend in an airtight container until you need it, with no shelf life given.³ No regulator or standards body we found gives one for store-bought sazón either. Keep it closed, away from heat, light and stovetop steam.

Safety

• Sodium. Goya’s Coriander and Annatto sazón carries 170 mg of sodium per 1/4 teaspoon (1 g), 7% of the Daily Value.² FDA puts the Daily Value at less than 2,300 mg a day and says diets higher in sodium are linked to a higher risk of high blood pressure, a major cause of stroke and heart disease.⁹ Low-sodium versions are available.¹
• MSG. FDA considers MSG generally recognized as safe, and when it’s added it has to be listed by name as “monosodium glutamate.” FDA says it’s received reports of symptoms like headache and nausea after foods with MSG but could never confirm that MSG caused them.⁴ See monosodium glutamate and cooking with MSG.
• Synthetic colors. FDA requires the label to name any certified color additive, such as Yellow 5 or Red 40. It says most children have no bad reactions to foods with color additives, but some evidence suggests certain children may be sensitive to them.¹⁰ Goya sells a version without annatto,¹ and a homemade blend skips synthetic dyes entirely.
• Lead in spices. A New York City health department review of 1,496 spice samples collected from 2008 to 2017 found detectable lead in more than half.¹¹ The study didn’t report results for sazón specifically.

Health claims

You use sazón in small amounts, and no study of the blend itself supports a health benefit. We don’t claim one.

Substitutes and comparisons

• Sazón seasoning substitutes
• Adobo seasoning, often used alongside sazón, and adobo substitutes
• Seasoned salt and seasoned salt substitutes
• MSG vs. salt and MSG substitutes

The individual ingredients: annatto seeds, cooking with annatto seeds, garlic powder, cumin, coriander, culantro and cilantro, oregano, onion powder and black pepper. For more seasonings by name, flavor and origin, see the master list of herbs and spices.