A lot of my food life is spent on twitter, especially now in the season of Covid. The good part about spending a lot of time on foodie twitter is finding new products to try. One of the new products that caught my eye was Poppa Earle’s Louisiana Cajun Seasoning. A fellow foodie @RiflemansCreed posted ribs that she seasoned with Poppa Earle’s and they looked delicious.
Seeing this and being a fan of Cajun Seasonings I immediately tried to find where to buy Poppa Eales online (Amazon Link). I found a link on Amazon but unfortunately, it was sold out. I then tried the Poppa Earles website and when I went to purchase the product, it sent me to that same sold-out Amazon listing. I then sent the Poppa Earles account on twitter and asked them how I can get my hands on some. The person who handles the Twitter account was so nice, they got my address and sent me a canister of the seasoning to try.
If you are familiar with Cajun seasoning you know that there are a couple of major players in this game, the best seller is in a green container and has the most name recognition in Louisiana and out of state, and the other one is in a yellow container and sports a title that sounds like domestic violence, and now there is Poppa Earle’s. I have both of the previously mentioned major players in my spice cabinet as all Louisiana natives should, and I use them regularly, but one thing that made me want to try Poppa Earle’s is that it is lower in salt than it’s competitors. It is slightly about 100 mg of sodium less per serving than the major brands I mentioned earlier.
Yeah, okay, so it’s lower in sodium but does that mean it is lower in flavor? No, not at all. So this is what you have been waiting for, how does it taste. Well in comparison to the other two major brands, here is my experience.
My first taste of Poppa Earle’s was unexpected, I poured a little on my hand to taste it without any other flavors. What I noticed is it did taste salty to me, then I started tasting the Cajun flavors. It was not as spicy as I expected but did finish with a well-rounded flavor.
I tried it the next few mornings on boiled and fried eggs. Poppa Earles seasoned the eggs well and made them enjoyable, I also used Poppa Earles on corn on the cob and in red beans and rice the same week, both with satisfactory results.
Poppa Earle’s is good and I like it, but I wanted to put it to the ultimate test. Would it be able to hold up to being the base for a rub for ribs? I love making ribs and I love making custom rubs. So I started my rub off with Poppa Earle’s Louisiana Cajun Seasoning and added sugar and small amounts of a couple of select spices that I thought would compliment the seasoning and the spare I could differentiate the spices I added. So I rubbed the ribs and refrigerated them for a couple of hours.
I am currently grill challenged so I have to cook my ribs in our oven. This is not a bad process but I use a rub for the cooking process and finish a sauce at higher heat for caramelization.
After tasting the rub and imagining what the ribs would taste like cooked in the rub, it seemed it was begging for a sweet sauce. After checking the fridge, I noticed my regular go-to sauce was not in there. No problem, I will make a Carolina style mustard-based sauce with a lot of honey for sweetness.
After the low and slow cook with the Poppa Earle’s rub we tasted a piece of pork and we knew we were on the right track with the mustard-based sauce to finish. When I tasted the ribs with only the Poppa Earle’s rub I knew that we could just finish the ribs off with only the rub, it was that good. I was extremely happy with the flavor of the pork.
We did finish the ribs with the mustard-based sauce and they turned out amazing. See below for that sexy sauce footage.
I believe the best way to perform a review is to see if it can elevate a recipe by replacing a major component of a recipe with the product you are reviewing. And Poppa Earle’s replaced a major portion of my dry rub with an elevated result. As a matter of fact, there were no seconds on these ribs, they all disappeared the first meal.
Another item I tried Poppa Earle’s in my Father’s Po’ Boy dressing recipe that he used to make. We use it for Po’ Boys and sandwiches. I replaced any salt, pepper, and seasonings I normally use with Poppa Earle’s and then put the dressing on a ham sandwich made with a potato roll. The dressing was very flavorful, I am still kind of partial to my Father’s original recipe but the Poppa Earle’s version will get made again as well, it was tasty and I can see that being a great addition to an oyster of shrimp Po’ Boy.
To recap, Poppa Earle’s is a flavorful lower in salt Louisiana Cajun seasoning. It is tasty, and not as spicy as other Cajun Seasonings in my opinion. I can see me grabbing Poppa Earle’s and adding a few dashes of cayenne for a satisfying spice and Cajun Flavor for use in future recipes. See below to find out where to get Poppa Earle’s Louisiana Cajun Seasoning.
You can pick up your own canister of Poppa Earle’s here.
Follow @poppaearles on Twitter
Follow poppa_earles on Instagram
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Thanks for reading this post,
Keith