The Taste Bud: Hot Chipotle Dan-O’s Steps Up the Seasoning Brand
Dan-O’s Hot Chipotle is smoky and delicious. Photos by Kevin Gibson
I became a big fan of Dan-O’s seasoning in the “Before Times,” and have used it regularly ever since. Now there’s a new flavor: Hot Chipotle. And it’s absolutely stomping.
When the original spice blend first came out — it’s local — there were two basic iterations: Regular and Spicy. Pretty much the same flavor profile, but one with just slightly more heat – maybe an extra dash or two of cayenne or somesuch goes into the latter.
But the new one takes the familiar flavor profile to a new place.
The guy who invented Dan-O’s a number of years ago as a rub for chicken, Dan Oliver, doesn’t release the ingredients, but one feature is that the spice blend, which does contain real sea salt, is all natural and low in sodium. It’s a blend of a lot of basics like garlic and onion, but with some more interesting features such as lemon peel and orange peel, which gives it a distinctive citrusy brightness.
The Chipotle version adds smoke and an extra kick of heat to the mix. When I got my jar home and opened it, taking a long smell, my first thought that it seemed a little, well, earthy. But the more it filled my olfactory, the more I felt it smelled pretty much just like a dried Chipotle pepper. That’s a good aroma.
It may look overcooked, but inside it’s medium rare. Thanks, Dan-O’s.
I shook some into my hand and tried it plain, and sure enough, the Chipotle flavor pops in a major way – and I quickly noticed that Oliver and his team have boosted the heat to a palpable if not offensive level. Even if you’re not a pepperhead like myself, this stuff won’t hurt you too badly. It just tastes damn good. (Sorry, Dan good.)
For my first use, I sprinkled some on some fried eggs, as I often eat eggs with Chipotle hot sauces. The savory sweetness of the yolk was a fine partner for the spicy, smoky spice blend, as I’d predicted. I also tried some on an avocado, and while it wasn’t quite as nice as with the egg, the smoke did sit well with the nutty qualities therein.
But it was Oliver’s pan-searing method using Dan-O’s seasoning that he shared on social media that turned me into a pan-searing regular. So, I bought myself a New York Strip steak to go with the Chipotle blend and went to town, coating the meat on both sides thickly, bringing the oil in the pan to a smoldering heat, and then dropping the steak in for that familiar “Sssssss!” sound.
One flip and few minutes later, the steak had a black char on each side and my kitchen smelled incredible. The meat inside was a beautiful, pink medium rare. The savory, spicy shell, as it were, locked in the steak’s natural juices, and those first couple of bites were some of my favorite bites of pretty much anything in recent memory. I don’t eat a ton of red meat these days, but the next time I do, I know what I’m cooking it with. Just the right smoke, just the right spice. Ready in 10 minutes.
If you haven’t tried Dan-O’s yet, it goes with pretty much everything, from chicken to pizza to soup or chili. And you can find it at most Kroger stores. Or, if you’d rather, you can order it direct at the Dan-O’s website. Heck, the stuff has even gotten so popular that there’s a Facebook fan group with more than 17,000 fans (you read that correctly). Fan-Os of Dan-O’s, anyone? Yeah, I’ll stop that now. As Dan-O himself likes to say, “Getcha some.”
