Last night, I was going to make salmon but Martin decided last minute that he didn’t want it. Rifling through my cabinets, I noticed I had all the ingredients for Kjersti’s “Crock Pot Chicken,” with two notable exceptions: a crock pot and zesty dry Italian dressing. I figured a big pot that I watched over would do the trick and quickly thaw out my frozen chicken but what about the dressing?
There was only one solution: the Internets! I knew they wouldn’t fail me. One time, I stumbled across a recipe for a “Taco Seasoning” substitute. If there was a taco seasoning substitute, there had to be a dry Italian dressing substitute. Had to be! I declared there had to be and now I was going to find it.
Luckily for my bold declaration, there was. I’m posting it here for future reference and in case other people want to add a little zesty dry Italian to their meal. The original recipe called for salt but it was definitely way too salty that way, so I have omitted it completely in this rendition. And very nicely, too, you most likely have all the herbs needed already to make this mix. So save yourself the $2 / packet and make it yourself!
I will post the chicken dish later, which would have been heaven on a plate except it was way too salty.
Dry Italian Dressing Substitute
1-½ tsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. onion powder
2 tbsp. oregano
1 tbsp. dried parsley
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. ground basil
¼ tsp. thyme
½ tsp. dried celery leaves
1/ Measure out all ingredients and combine in bowl. Use in place of Zesty Dry Italian Dressing packet.
2/ To make dressing: Mix 2 tbsp. of mix with ¼ cup vinegar, 2 tbsp. water and ½ to ⅔ cup olive oil.
Servings: 1 packet
pPod's Kitchen 
[…] Also, a lot of recipes called for dry Italian dressing and I just made my own again using the recipe I’ve posted earlier. Also, I used the bread on hand (a sweet wheat) which was tasty but […]
This is great. I live where I cannot buy “packet” seasonings so I’m hoping I can come up with the ingredients. I like to make an olive salad and use 1/2 packet to season. Soak canned items in water a couple times to remove saltiness.
1 can black olives, 1 can green olives, 1 can worth of chopped celery, 1/2 packet of zesty Italian, couple squirts of vinegar and plop of olive oil. mix and into the ref. as an addition artichoke hearts, mushrooms.
I learned this from a lady I met at The Dollar Tree. She was also hoarding olives and I wanted a couple cans…she gave the cans and the recipe.
Fantastic! Thanks for the substitution recipe! I plan to use it in the same kind of recipe.
Thank you sooooo much for sharing this! So helpful!
[…] ingredients for the recipe except for an italian seasoning packet. I found out how to make my own here, so I added the components to make a special blend. It was super delicious and easy to make. Below […]
I too had everything but this. Thank you sooo much for posting. Saved dinner!!!!!
[…] mix, so I turned to my trusty Bing to give me a hand. I found a great substitution tutorial on pPod’s Kitchen (excellent blog, by the […]
Thanks a million. Saved me a trip to the store. This is better anyway and I plan to use it from now
Hey, I made this. IT WAS GREAT!! I’m 10 and no help required. Super easy and yummy! I didn’t have dressing mix, so I added more italian spices (whatever you’d like) and sugar and flour. Just taste the dressing. It’s a perfect base recipe, and easy to dress up.
So glad to hear this! 🙂 Thanks for taking the time to reach out.
Thank you SO much!! I live in a place with a small grocery store & they didn’t have the dry mix. I needed it for a dip recipe for the 4th. Appreciate this a lot!!!
thank you for the dry Italian seasoning recipe. I’m sure I’ll use it many times in the years to come.
Thank you for this substitution recipe which I find I have all of it already in my pantry. I too want to make the chicken crockpot recipe and found your reference to save the day1