Fowl Play Poultry Seasoning - 10 oz

Dennis Daily didn't set out to build a whole seasoning lineup — Fowl Play came together from mixing something lighter and more savory for whatever chicken hit the grill that week. It stuck because it worked, and it kept getting asked for by name.

This chicken seasoning is a dry rub built around Italian herbs — rosemary, oregano, basil, thyme, and marjoram — paired with butter powder for a rounded, golden finish and a modest hit of cayenne pepper at the back end. Salt, garlic powder, sugar, onion powder, and ground mustard round out the base. Every batch is mixed by hand in a Minnesota home kitchen in small runs, using locally sourced ingredients, rather than blended at industrial scale to hit a price point.

It's built for poultry — rub it under the skin or over the surface of a whole bird, chicken thighs, or turkey breast before it goes on the smoker or into the oven — but it doesn't stay in its lane. It shows up on pork chops, gets tossed with roasted or grilled vegetables, and has become a go-to finishing dust for popcorn.

The ingredient list skips wheat and gluten-containing grains, so it fits cleanly into gluten-free cooking, though the sugar and butter powder mean it doesn't fit strict paleo, carnivore, or keto protocols. The butter powder also means this one isn't dairy-free or vegan.

Store the jar sealed in a cool, dry pantry, away from direct heat and sunlight, to keep the ground herbs and spices at their best.

Ingredients: Salt, Butter Powder, Garlic Powder, Sugar, Onion Powder, Ground Mustard, Black Pepper, Rosemary, Oregano, Basil, Cayenne Pepper, Thyme, and Marjoram.

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Common Questions

How does Fowl Play compare to a typical grocery-store chicken rub in terms of ingredients and sodium?
Most mass-market poultry rubs lead with sugar or dextrose as the first or second ingredient, often delivering 3 to 4 grams of sugar per teaspoon, with salt further down the list to offset that sweetness. Fowl Play flips that order: salt and butter powder lead, garlic powder is third, and sugar sits fifth behind onion powder, meaning a typical quarter-teaspoon serving carries well under a gram of sugar. Sodium is still the dominant flavor driver here, similar to conventional rubs, but there's no maltodextrin, silicon dioxide anti-caking agent, or artificial color added to bulk it out, which is common in shelf-stable commercial blends. The tradeoff is a shorter shelf life and more batch-to-batch variation, since nothing here is standardized at industrial scale.

What do the herbs in this blend actually do besides add flavor?
Rosemary and oregano both contain carnosic acid and rosmarinic acid, compounds studied for their antioxidant activity, which is part of why dried rosemary has historically been used to slow rancidity in fatty cuts like chicken thighs and turkey skin. Thyme and marjoram contain thymol and terpinen-4-ol, aromatic compounds that volatilize under dry heat and are largely responsible for the herbaceous smell that develops once the rub hits a hot grill or oven. The cayenne pepper contributes capsaicin in a small enough quantity to add background warmth without dominating the Italian herb profile. None of this is a health claim about the rub itself, but it explains why an Italian-herb-forward blend behaves differently on the grill than a simple salt-and-pepper mix.

Does this fit a keto, paleo, or carnivore diet?
For keto, it fits well: a typical serving has under 1 gram of net carbs since sugar is a minor ingredient rather than a leading one, and there's no flour or starch-based filler. For paleo, it's a mixed answer, since butter powder is a dairy derivative and strict paleo protocols exclude dairy in any form, even dried. For carnivore, it does not qualify, since garlic powder, onion powder, and all the dried herbs are plant-derived seasonings, which strict carnivore eating excludes entirely. Anyone following a stricter version of these diets should read the ingredient list against their own rules rather than assume a spice blend is automatically compliant.

Can this be used on anything besides chicken and turkey?
Yes. It's built around poultry because that's what it was developed for on Monday-night cookouts, but the butter powder and Italian herb base translate well to pork chops, where the golden crust behaves similarly to how it does on chicken skin. It also works dry-tossed on roasted or grilled vegetables like zucchini, carrots, or potatoes, since the salt-forward base seasons vegetable surfaces the same way it seasons meat. The popcorn use is a real one too: because it's a fine, dry powder rather than a coarse rub, it clings to popcorn without clumping, unlike coarser steak rubs that contain visible cracked pepper or turbinado sugar crystals. No adjustment to cook time or temperature is needed in any of these applications since it's a surface seasoning, not a marinade or brine.

What does small-batch and Minnesota-made actually mean here, and how would I verify it?
It means Dennis Daily mixes each run by hand in a home kitchen in Minnesota rather than contracting a co-packer or industrial spice blender to produce it at volume. There's no third-party certification body auditing this the way there would be for USDA Organic or Non-GMO Project Verified, so the claim rests on the brand's own sourcing and production practices rather than an external seal. What you can verify directly is the ingredient list itself, which is short and specific rather than padded with anti-caking agents or flow agents typical of large-batch commercial spice production. If traceability matters to you, the practical check is consistency: small hand-mixed batches will show more natural variation in color and grind from jar to jar than a factory-blended product, and that variation is itself a sign of the process being what it claims to be.

Why is this called a small-batch product and does that affect how I should use or store it?
Small-batch here means each mixing run is limited by what can be hand-blended in a home kitchen at one time, not scaled up with mechanical blenders or bulk dry-goods equipment. Practically, this means the herb content, especially the more volatile ones like basil and thyme, may be slightly more potent or slightly more variable jar to jar compared to a mass-produced rub where flavor is chemically standardized. Because there are no added preservatives or anti-caking agents to extend shelf stability, it benefits more than a factory blend would from being stored sealed, in a cool dark pantry, and used within a reasonable window rather than left open on a spice rack for a year. If you notice a jar tastes stronger or milder than the last one, that's consistent with how a genuinely small-batch, hand-mixed product behaves rather than a defect.

How much should I use per pound of chicken or turkey?
A reasonable starting point is about 1 teaspoon per pound of poultry for a light surface coating, or up to 1 tablespoon per pound if you're going under the skin on a whole bird or working with a thicker cut like a turkey breast where more surface area needs coverage. Because salt is the first ingredient, it's worth under-seasoning on the first use and tasting after cooking rather than doubling up blindly, especially if you're also brining the bird beforehand, since brine salt and rub salt will stack. For thighs or a whole chicken headed to the smoker, applying it an hour before cooking rather than right before gives the salt time to draw moisture out and reabsorb it, improving skin crisping. This isn't a cure or brine substitute, so it doesn't extend the safe holding time of raw poultry before cooking.