My Fiancé’s Secret Ingredient for the Most Flavorful Canned Beans of Your Life (the $4 Jar Lasts Practically Forever)

In our pantry, my fiancé and I always have a ton of spices and a few different seasoning blends, including everything bagel seasoning (a must-have for my morning toast), Italian seasoning (I rarely make roasted potatoes without it), and Cajun seasoning (it adds major oomph to canned beans). Our go-to Cajun seasoning is a hard-to-miss yellow and red container that’s less than $4. 

Walker & Sons Slap Ya Mama seasoning is so simple yet packs a ton of flavor. Plus a little goes a long way. My 8-ounce container has lasted me for months — and I still have more than half left.

Walker & Sons’ Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning is what happened when a Louisiana convenience store owner needed a less salty blend to use in his shop’s deli. To clear up any confusion on the name, it’s actually a reference to a potato dish the founder was known for; he never laid hands on his mother, and she even signed off on the name, according to the brand’s website.

This seasoning blend contains just four ingredients: salt, black pepper, red pepper, and granulated garlic. It’s savory and decently spicy, and offers that garlicky umami essence to round the flavor out. My fiancé and I like to use it on a bunch of different dishes, like scrambled eggs, roasted potatoes, and, as of recently, canned black beans. 

We aren’t the only ones who love it, though. The Cajun seasoning has more than 6,400 five-star ratings on Amazon, and more than 2,000 shoppers have bought it in the past month.

As someone who’s a big fan of Cajun food and its spicy, punchy, comforting flavors, I am never without Cajun seasoning. I’m a particular fan of this blend because it’s so well balanced: The spice of the red peppers brings a little back of the throat burn, the wonderful savory notes of the salt and the garlic, plus sharp, peppery notes from the black pepper. It all comes together to add a big kick to any dish.

I’ve used this seasoning for a lot of different dishes (like grilled chicken, roasted broccoli, and oven-baked salmon), but my favorite way to use it right now is with canned black beans. We make a lot of black bean burrito bowls in our home, and one night my fiancé decided to zhuzh up the beans by adding them to a pot and heating them through with a few dashes of the Slap Ya Mama seasoning. I was amazed at how perfectly it went with the beans, adding a little heat and umami. I’ve only made black beans this way ever since. 

On the jar, one recommendation the brand offers is to use it on popcorn, which might just be my next adventure with this seasoning. I also think this would be wildly good on a homemade Chex mix. 

What’s your favorite Cajun seasoning? Tell us about it in the comments below.