Say Goodbye To Bland Chicken Noodle Soup With This Croatian Seasoning

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Chicken noodle soup is a time-honored cure for what ails you, but it's not always known as the most exciting of dishes. This may not matter if you have a bad cold and can't taste anything, but if you're trying to wake up your taste buds, you'll probably want to add some seasonings. Even the most mediocre of store-bought soups can be spiced up with Asian-style seasonings, while lemon juice also helps brighten things up. One seasoning you may not have tried, however, is a Croatian import called Vegeta. (No relation to the Dragon Ball baddie.)

Vegeta, which was invented in a Coration food lab in 1959, comes in powdered form, and its ingredients consist of sea salt, dehydrated carrots, parsnips, onions, potatoes, celery, tomatoes, and leeks, as well as a host of seasonings like paprika, parsley, sugar, lovage, black pepper, turmeric, garlic, and dill. It's a little high in sodium (about 660 milligrams per teaspoon), but then, this is likely to be true of most seasoning mixes that contain salt. And as King Lear could tell you, had he not expired in a fit of Shakespearean tragedy, soup without salt is not worth eating.

Of course, there's a lot more to Vegeta than salt alone. This seasoning helps to give chicken noodle soup a savory boost, while the herbs and vegetables add complexity. It's also plant-based and lacking in any artificial flavors, gluten, and preservatives, so it should be safe for most dietary needs.

While Vegeta may be your one-stop shop for a well-seasoned soup (chicken noodle or any other kind), it's worth seeking out even if you're not much of a soup eater. If you live in a city where there's a fairly sizable Eastern European population, it may be pretty easy to come by in specialty groceries or even some mainstream ones. You can also purchase Vegeta on Amazon, of course. Once you have it on hand, there's really no limit to what you can do with it.

Vegeta is a natural fit for all manner of Eastern European dishes, from burek (phyllo dough wrapped around a savory or sweet filling) to ćevapi (sausages) to sarma (meat-stuffed cabbage rolls). Even if you're not cooking Croatian-style, you can stir it into a stew or use it to add vegetal flavor to chili. It makes a great dry rub for meat and poultry, and can also be sprinkled over french fries or eggs. Combine it with cream cheese or sour cream to make a dip, or even use it to rim the glass for a Bloody Mary. Basically, anywhere you might think to use seasoned salt, you can work in some Vegeta instead. It may still be the Balkans' best-kept secret, but it's versatile enough that it could blow up and become bigger than Tajín (which itself was relatively unknown in the U.S. not too long ago).