I’ve been absolutely intrigued with Mexican hot sauces for so long. They have the most beautiful earthy flavor. I always thought that they must be so difficult to make, that was until a good friend taught me just how easy a Mexican hot sauce can be.
There’s many different chili combinations you can use in Mexican hot sauce. There’s recipes that also add different spices, vinegar and even sugar, but I wanted to keep my hot sauce pretty simple and let the chilis do the talking.
So for my hot sauce, I just used three chili peppers, guajillo, ancho arbol chili peppers. The guajillo and ancho provide a wonderful full flavor, while the arbol provides extra heat.
This sauce is somewhat time consuming, even though the ingredient list is pretty short. First you must toast the peppers to bring out their full flavor. Then you have to soak them for quite a while in hot water so that they reconstitute and their flesh softens. The skin will still be pretty tough, so I like to discard that along with the seed and veins of the peppers.
After removing all the flash from the peppers, I blend that with my soaking water along with a little garlic, onion and salt. This salt needs more salt than you might think. The addition of salt really helps the flavor of the chili to come alive.
To serve this sauce, we’ve been spooning it on everything from breakfast tacos and burritos to taco salads and even just dipping tortilla chips in it. Last night though, I served some Old El Paso Beef Enchiladas. Pouring a little of this homemade sauce on top of the enchiladas really made them wonderful. I also served a simple guacamole salad alongside. This made a great dinner for 2.
Yield: Serves 4
5 dried guajillo chilis
5 dried ancho chilis
10 Dried De Arbol Chili Peppers
1 clove garlic
3 tablespoons chopped onion
hot water
1 teaspoon salt
*Before working with peppers be sure to use food safe gloves or coat hands well in cooking oil.
Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. Add a layer of the chili peppers to the hot pan and toast on each side until fragrant, about 1 minute.
Add all toasted chili peppers to a large bowl and cover with hot water. Let soak for a few hours, or until softened.
After peppers are soft, halve each guajilla and ancho pepper and dip in soaking water to remove seeds. Remove the veins and take a spoon so scrap off the flesh of the pepper from the skin. Discard skin and add pepper flesh to blender.
Add 1 1/2 cups of the soaking water to blender, being sure to strain all seeds from the water. Discard small peppers. Their heat has been infused into the soaking water.
Add garlic and onion to blender, and then bland sauce on high until well-combined. Store hot sauce in small jars until ready to use.
This post sponsored by Old El Paso. All opinions 100% mine.