Morton & Bassett Italian Seasoning Vs Safeway Italian Seasoning

Not all Italian seasonings are created equally. Being someone who cooks in the Italian style most frequently, I am constantly in search of a good Italian seasoning to use when I am not highly motivated enough to use fresh herbs in my cooking. Since my wife and I shop primarily at Safeway, we frequently purchase a large quantity of Safeway store-brand Italian seasoning for everyday use. Recently, however, we bought a small jar of Morton & Bassett brand premium Italian seasoning out of curiosity to see if the premium brand made a difference in our cooking. Did it ever!

The Safeway brand Italian seasoning is a basic blend of Italian herbs and spices such as oregano, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme (song cue, everyone!). The Morton & Bassett premium blend, however, contains a much more exotic blend of herbs and spices. Here is a quick rundown of the ingredients in the Morton & Bassett premium Italian seasoning: basil, coriander, garlic, paprika, oregano, onion, sage, parsley, thyme, and black pepper. While there is a lot of overlap in the ingredients between these two varieties of Italian seasoning, the addition of such ingredients as paprika and black pepper gives the Morton & Bassett brand Italian seasoning a zesty flavor that traditional Italian seasoning often lacks. Since often I will add these ingredients in addition to a basic Italian seasoning anyways, it was a pleasant to surprise to find all these ingredients already combined into one seasoning blend.

As mentioned above, the Morton & Bassett Italian seasoning contains paprika. This is actually somewhat of an understatement, as paprika is clearly a major component of the Morton & Bassett Italian seasoning, as indicated by the burnt red color of the seasoning mix overall. I myself am a lover of paprika, and I use paprika in a number of my favorite dishes. Not everyone is partial to paprika, however, and those people may prefer the basic Safeway brand Italian seasoning to the Morton & Bassett premium blend.