Garlic rules everything. My father drilled that into my head before I could properly boil water. Don’t skimp on it. Ever. Now that I’m older and somehow even lazier? I don’t always have time for scratch. I want the soul of home cooking without the sweat. Enter the frozen aisle. Specifically the frozen pizza box that usually tastes like cardboard disappointment.
Until I found the Just Spices Italian Allrounder.
It’s cheap. It’s bold. And right now it’s $5.99 on Amazon.
I stumbled upon this about two years back via a starter kit. The box was full of decent powders. But this blend? It stole the show. Most “Italian seasoning” stuff in the supermarket is a sad, dusty gray mist of oregano that has forgotten who it is. This is different.
Not Dust. Distinct.
Here’s the thing. Most blends skip the garlic. In my house? That’s heresy. You cannot cook Italian food without garlic. It is non-negotiable. Just Spices gets that. The Allrounder mixes sea salt, black Tellicherry pepper, tomato, onion, and yes. Real garlic.
And the grind is coarse. Rougher than the other guys.
Why does that matter? Texture. Flavor pockets. When you shake this onto a frozen Margherita before baking, you get individual hits of spice. You taste the pepper. You taste the garlic clove fragments. They don’t merge into a vague, one-note “herbal” blob. They stay distinct. Like biting into a well-seasoned bite rather than chewing on a cloud of powder.
“The flavor of its individual ingredients… retain fresh and distinctive notes.”
It’s basically those red pepper flakes packets you get at the pizza place but infinitely better. Because it’s salt and garlic too. The frozen pizza usually lacks punch. It needs a kick. This is that kick.
I’ve used it everywhere.
Pasta with store-bought jar sauce? Yes. Sprinkle it on top. Instant upgrade.
Risotto? Also yes. I dump it into the vegetable broth while it simmers. The Arborio rice soaks it up. The garlic mingles with the starch. It makes a humble vegetable risotto taste like it sat on a back counter in Brooklyn for an hour.
Why spend forty bucks on a delivery driver’s fee when you have a bag of seasoning that does the same work?
You probably already have frozen stuff in the freezer. The question is not whether you can cook. It is whether you want the meal to actually taste like food.
Try the coarse grind. Watch it elevate the cheap.
What do you keep in your jar rack?
