Seasoned salt v. Salt Free Seasoning

While cruising the aisles of the Penzeys Spice store near me (Arlington, MA) I came across their new salt free blend of herbs and spices that they claim will make my food taste so good I won't need to salt it. I felt the immediate need to put their claim to the test.

Here's what I did:

I took 1 lb. of ground turkey and divided in half.

I put 1/2 pound of ground turkey in a mixing bowl with 2 teaspoons of Penzeys' Mural of Flavor (salt free) seasoning and 1 Tablespoon of finely chopped onion.

In another mixing bowl I combined the remaining 1/2 pound of ground turkey with 2 teaspoons of Penzeys' Polish Sausage Seasoning (for which the first ingredient was salt) and 1 Tablespoon of finely chopped onion.

I mixed each bowl separately, with a separate fork until well combined and then put them in the refridgerator for about 5 hours until it was time to make dinner.

I shaped small patties - I was passing these off as "homemade sausage" to my unsuspecting family - and arranged them in an oiled rimmed baking pan and baked them - turning once for about 15 minutes (or until cooked through). I'm probably stating the obvious here, but I cooked the two batches separately in separate pans so that the flavors would not get mixed together - no accidental contamination of salt with no salt.

I served my homemade sausages (lazyman's meatballs really - since I cut out all the fussy extras you find in meatball recipes) with bow-tie pasta and a traditional jarred tomatoe sauce (no, I don't make homemade sauce all the time) , sauteed spinach and a salad.

I gave my kids one of each kind of sausage patty - without revealing any information about the differences - and neither one of them liked the salt free sausages... although they ate many of the salted variety. My husband and I noticed that the salt free sausages were much drier in consistency than the salted ones. I was rather surprised about this finding - although I believe the explanation is the same one I use for my dry aged roast turkey with salt - the salt in the seasoning helped the ground meat absorb more water so that it stayed moister when it was cooked. I actually enjoyed the flavor and the taste of both sausages - they were quite distinct from each other, which was good since no one else like the dried out salt free ones - I was left eating all of those.

The final results:
If I'm making homemade sausage again for my family I'd have to go with the moist and delicious Polish Sausage Seasoning.
If I try the salt free seasoning again I'll need to add something to the meat mixture to keep it moist (like chopped apple) or perhaps I could try cooking the sausage patties in boiling chicken broth instead of drying them out with a blast of oven heat.

So how do my findings reflect on Penzeys claims about their salt free seasoning? Well, it is tasty. I tried it on top of my scrambeld eggs and didn't miss my usual salt and pepper at all. I could imagine using it instead of salt in certain dishes, but as I found from the drastic effect no salt had on my cooked meat it won't be replacing my salt shaker (these days it is more likely a salt grinder) any time soon.