Simply Recipes: Mexican and Tex Mex Recipes

Mexican and Tex Mex Recipes

7 Layer Bean Dip: Refried beans should not be eaten cold. There, I've said it. I don't usually put my foot down about food preferences, but cold refried beans are about as appealing as a cold hamburger. This is why I make 7-layer dip...
Albondigas Soup: This Mexican meatball soup was a family favorite growing up. Not an appetizer, always a main course, either for lunch or dinner. "Albondigas" means "meatballs" in Spanish, and the trick to perfect albondigas soup is to put chopped mint leaves...
An Evening of Cooking with DK: The grande dame of Mexican cooking, Diana Kennedy, paid Sacramento a visit last night and gave a cooking demonstration class for about 70 of her appreciative fans, my mother and I included. If you have heard of Diana Kennedy, you...
Apple Chicken Quesadilla: I was charged with providing lunch for several kids (ages 4, 6, 7, and 9) a few days ago and prepared for them one of my favorite quickie lunches - chicken and apple quesadillas. The kids gobbled them up, and...
Arroz Con Pollo: Arroz con pollo means "Rice with Chicken" in Spanish. It is a classic dish of Spain and Latin America, with many different traditional ways to prepare it, unique to various countries. An arroz con pollo you find in Cuba may...
Carne Asada: Carne asada shown wrapped up in a flour tortilla with pico de gallo and avocado Carne asada is the thinly sliced, grilled beef served so often in tacos and burritos. It is also commonly served as is, with rice and...
Carnitas: Enter any Mexican taqueria in California and you'll find carnitas on the menu, usually pork butt (the shoulder roast) braised first, pulled apart, and then roasted on high heat to caramelize. This is my father's favorite recipe for pork carnitas...
Ceviche: The first time I made ceviche, I was amazed. I could actually see the lemon and lime juice turning the color of the fish from translucent pink to opaque white. The acid from the limes and lemons change the structure...
Cheese Tacos: Most kids grow up learning how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so they can help themselves in the kitchen when they want some lunch. In our family, it was cheese tacos. It's our stand-by what-do-you-make-when-you-haven't-really-thought-about-it-in-advance lunch. There's always...
Chicken Enchiladas Verdes: The tomatillos in my garden are all ripening at once. Have you ever cooked with tomatillos? They look like little lanterns, with their green papery husks. Sometimes people mistake them for green tomatoes (doesn't help that their Spanish name is...
Chicken Pozole: I've been begging my friend Arturo to teach me how to make pozole for months now. The problem is that it is sort of like asking someone to make you "taco night". Pozole is a big production, not in the...
Chile Relleno Casserole: Classic chiles rellenos are green chiles, blackened and outer skin removed, stuffed with either cheese or a pork sausage picadillo, dipped in batter, fried in oil, and often served with a thin tomato sauce. I grew up loving the chiles...
Chile Verde: Walk into almost any taqueria in this country and you will find chile verde on the menu. The chile will likely be made with chunks of pork shoulder, slow cooked in a green chile sauce of jalapeno chiles, garlic, and...
Chiles en Nogada (Chilies in Walnut Sauce): Guaymas Restaurant in Tiburon is my favorite Mexican restaurant in Northern California and their Chile Poblano is the best item on the menu. It is a green poblano chili stuffed with a picadillo and covered in a walnut creme sauce...
Chipotle Bean Tostadas: Tostadas are toasted or fried corn tortillas, topped with a layer of refried beans and other things such as cheese, lettuce, and salsa. Growing up, my mother made tostadas or tacos for us at least once a month, the main...
Chipotle Meatballs: Chipotle chiles are jalapeño peppers that have been smoked and dried. They are often served in an adobo sauce made with chiles, garlic, vinegar, onions and tomatoes. We came across this recipe for Chipotle Meatballs recently in the New York...
Chorizo and Eggs: Growing up, we had some of the standard American foods for breakfast - cream o' wheat, oatmeal, waffles, fried eggs, pancakes (no sugar coated cereals in this household!) - and a couple things I never saw in any of my...
Enchiladas: Preparation time: 30 minutes. Enchiladas were a family staple growing up, though thankfully this cheese enchilada recipe has much less fat in it these days. My mother, a fifth generation hispanic Arizonian, learned this recipe from my grandmother. Note that...
Fish Tacos: In Mexico, practically every meal is accompanied by a stack of fresh warm corn tortillas, much in the way that bread is served here in America. As you eat, you can wrap whatever is on your plate in a fresh...
Fresh Tomato Salsa: A standard and almost necessary accompaniment to most Mexican food is salsa. Salsa (meaning "sauce" in Spanish) comes in many different ways, the most common being chopped tomatoes, onions and chile. Growing up with a Hispanic mom from Tucson, we...
Green Chile Cornbread: Finally. A green chile cornbread that is moist, flavorful, and filled with corn and chiles. I've been experimenting for a couple of years now and believe we now have a winner. Do you like green chiles? I grew up eating...
How to Make Corn Tortillas: Nothing beats tortillas made from scratch. The packaged tortillas you get at big American markets don't even come close to a good, freshly made corn tortilla. My dear friend Martha's husband Arturo recently spent an afternoon with me, taking me...
Huevos Rancheros: One great benefit of growing up in California (LA actually) and having a Hispanic mother is being exposed at an early age to Mexican food. From the time I was 5 it was my job to prepare the salsa for...
Huevos a la Mexicana: Huevos al la Mexicana, or Mexican-style eggs, are essentially eggs, cooked and scrambled in salsa. My mother has been serving "huevos" (pronounced weh-vose, with the beginning like "when" without the n) prepared like this forever, as her mother before her...
Jicama Salad: Are you familiar with jicama? This tuber looks like a seriously overgrown radish and is the root of a vine native to Mexico and Central America. The flesh is crunchy, mild, and even faintly sweet, and is often served with...
Mango Salsa: Fresh mango salsa is easy to make and perfect with halibut or salmon or as the salsa in fish tacos.
Mexican Green Bean Salad: One of our favorite ways to eat green beans is with salsa. The tomatoes, onions, chiles, spices, and vinegar perk up the beans in the most wonderful way. This bean salad recipe is sort of a riff on the salsa...
Mexican Red Chili Sauce: Red chili sauces are used in many Mexican and Tex-Mex dishes, such as red chile enchiladas or tamales. On doing research for this post I found references to many different ways of making red chile sauce; in Mexico alone there...
Mom's Chicken Enchiladas: Ninety-five percent of the time when we have enchiladas, it is my mom's (amazingly good, incredibly awesome) cheese enchiladas. Once in a while however, she'll make chicken enchiladas. With chicken enchiladas she often uses a red chili sauce which is...
Nachos: Nachos are considered more "Tex Mex" than Mexican, being an invention of one Ignacio "Nacho" Anaya, a restaurateur serving American servicemen in the 1940s. At their essence, they are simply a layer of tortilla chips with melted cheddar cheese and...
Oven-toasted Sonoran Quesadilla: My mother grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and remembers fondly what she calls "Sonoran Quesadillas" - large, thin, flour tortillas, toasted with butter and cheese, and often topped with strips of mild green chiles. The quesadillas are called "Sonoran" because...
Perfect Guacamole: Guacamole, a dip made from avocados, is originally from Mexico. The name is derived from two Aztec Nahuatl words - ahuacatl (avocado) and molli (sauce). The trick to perfect guacamole is using good, ripe avocados. Check for ripeness by gently...
Pickled Jalapenos (Escabeche): Chiles Jalapenos y Serrano Escabeche This year I decided to grow jalapeño and serrano chiles - those wonderfully hot and flavorful Mexican chiles that are used salsa, guacamole, and so many Mexican dishes. But I certainly wasn't expecting each plant...
Quesadilla: I grew up making quesadillas, the benefit of having a Hispanic mother who is a great cook. "Queso" is cheese in Spanish. And a quesadilla is a toasted tortilla with melted cheese inside. But in addition to cheese, you can...
Red Chile Marinated Grilled Chicken: This is some of the best chicken I've ever eaten - grilled, roasted, baked, whatever. Juicy, spicy, tender, lipsmackin' good. Here's the deal, there are two ways to make this recipe. One way entails making your own red chile sauce...
Refried Beans: Frijoles Refritos Pinto beans, prepared Mexican style, are such a staple in our house a week rarely goes by without my mother making up a batch. Although beans have a relatively long shelf life, the older they are the longer...
Rose Petal Flan: Have you ever encountered a stubborn teenager who outright refuses to eat something new, in spite of everyone telling her how good it is? At some point you just give up and say, "oh have it your way, all the...
Salsa Verde Carnitas: Carnitas are the Mexican version of pulled pork. Braised first in a spicy sauce, pork shoulder is slow cooked until so tender the meat just shreds easily with a fork, then it's roasted at high heat to make crispy browned...
Shrimp Ceviche: From the recipe archive for the hot days of summer. With the warm days of summer upon us, a great way to cool off is with ceviche. Ceviche is typically made with red snapper that is "cooked" by the acidity...
Shrimp Quesadilla: Quesadillas have to be my favorite go-to food for lunch. They're just so easy to make! Especially when you have tortillas and cheese in the fridge, which we almost always do. Recently I had lunch with an old friend at...
Simple Cooked Tomato Salsa: My friend Arturo taught me how to make this simple salsa the other day. He calls it "Salsa Fresca", which he says is what this salsa is called where he's from in Mexico. What we in the states usually call...
Simple Salsa: There are two basic types of tomato-based salsas - salsa made with fresh tomatoes and salsa made with cooked tomatoes. When cooking salsa, as we do when we make enchiladas, we always use the cooked-tomato version, not the fresh. This...
Spanish Rice: Can be prepared in 40 minutes or less. One of my mother's signature dishes is her Spanish rice, a delicious accompaniment to steak, chicken, and Mexican entrees such as tacos or enchiladas. Spanish rice is prepared by browning the rice...
Spicy Garlic Shrimp with Coconut Rice: Throughout the coastal areas of Latin America, you'll find local variations of "Camarones al Ajillo", freshly caught shrimp, fried quickly in olive oil with garlic and chiles. My friend Arturo grew up near the beaches of Acapulco and learned a...
Steak Fajitas: Classic Tex Mex, fajitas (pronounced fah-hee-tas) are typically made with grilled strips of skirt steak with onions and bell peppers, and served sizzling hot with fresh tortillas, guacamole, sour cream, and salsa. You can make fajitas with steak or chicken...
Tex-Mex Lasagna: Tex-Mex "Lasagna" (also known as "Mexican Casserole" or "Mexican Lasagna") is called such because like the Italian lasagna we know and love, the Tex-Mex version is a baked casserole dish comprised of layers. Only in true Tex-Mex fashion, we are...
Tomatillo Salsa Verde: Growing up we always had a choice of two kinds of salsa - a red tomato salsa which we made from scratch, and a salsa verde, or green salsa, which we got from a bottle (Victoria brand). As a kid...
Tortilla Soup: Tortilla soup encompasses all the things I love best in Mexican cooking. Do you like salsa? avocado? cilantro? fresh hot tortilla chips? Tortilla soup is like a soup version of my favorite enchilada, with chicken, and tortilla chips. And avocado...
Vegetarian Banana Leaf Tamales: Tamales are a Latin American favorite, a delicious filling surrounded by corn meal dough, and steamed until cooked. Most tamales that we have the occasion to eat here in the US are wrapped in corn husks, the method typical of...