Quick and Easy Homemade Enchilada Sauce | Recipes for Large Families

Name: Quick and Easy Homemade Enchilada Sauce
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 15 min
Ingredients: 3 tbsp flour; 1-2 tbsp chili powder ((1 tbsp if sensitive to spice, 2 tbsp if you want the sauce to be spicier)); 1 tsp ground cumin; 1/2 tsp garlic powder (or 1/4 tsp fresh chopped garlic (cooked in preheated olive oil before adding dry ingredients)); 1/4-1/2 tsp dried or fresh oregano; 1/4 tsp ground sea salt (or preferred salt, add to taste); 1/4-1 tsp ground cinnamon ((less for more savory flavor, more for a sweeter aroma and flavor; more cinnamon is our preference!)); 3 tbsp olive oil; 2 tbsp tomato paste; 2 C broth ((any will do; see notes)); 1 tsp distilled white vinegar; 1/4 tsp ground pepper; (add to taste); 1/4 tsp ground sea salt; (add to taste)

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Whether it’s for pouring over enchiladas, or rice and meat, this homemade enchilada sauce is quick and easy to make and has authentic flavor! After trying different recipes, we made it our own, and our large family loves it. Hang out with us as we share our recipe with you in this post!

Table of Contents

Welcome! We’re so glad you’re here! In this post, we share with you our family’s favorite homemade enchilada sauce recipe, why we make it at home, and why we know you’ll love it too!

Why do we make our own homemade enchilada sauce?

The very first reason I started looking for recipes to make homemade enchilada sauce was because of the amount of processed ingredients and unhealthy oils I found in canned enchilada sauces. I started reading labels a long time ago, but we went through a big move and a short season where convenience became priority. It wasn’t long before our health started paying for it. We started moving toward a more from scratch, pro-metabolic health approach, and saw results and change very quickly in most areas. Other areas take more time. But, as a family, we were learning and understanding that food can either support or hinder our bodies and its functions. So, we were paying more attention to what was in our food than ever before.

I also started making enchilada sauce at home because I could not find a canned one that my whole family enjoyed. Whether for pouring on enchiladas, or just over meat and rice, enchilada sauce helps us mix up our dinner options. They may be inexpensive, but you get what you pay for. Almost every canned enchilada sauce I found was filled with unhealthy ingredients, and we didn’t like it anyways. One was too spicy, another too bland. Why should I pay for it?! When I looked up the ingredients and realized I already had all of them on hand, I knew I wasn’t going to buy canned enchilada sauce ever again. I went on a mission to find or create a recipe that my whole family would eat and enjoy!

homemade enchilada sauce over rice and chicken

Why we know you’ll love this homemade enchilada sauce too?

It’s quick and easy to make.

This quick and easy homemade enchilada sauce recipe clocks in around 15 minutes. If you keep your dried spices pre-mixed in a mason jar for this recipe, you can get it done in less than 10 minutes! Now that is time-savin’ cookin’! This recipe is so easy, older kids can cook it alone. Or, you can bring your younger kids alongside you to mix the dry ingredients, and they’ll love contributing AND spending quality time with you!

kids mixing the dry ingredients for homemade enchilada sauce

It’s made with healthy ingredients.

Another reason we believe you’ll love our recipe is because it is made from scratch with healthy ingredients. And you can even decide how healthy by how or where you source each and every ingredient. Of course homegrown is best, but we may not all be there yet. So, knowing your sources gives you the peace of mind that you are cooking with healthy ingredients. We will also give suggestions, but you make the decisions.

dry spices and ingredients for homemade enchilada sauce in a bowl

It tastes great!

This recipe creates a homemade enchilada sauce that is rich in spices giving it an authentic Mexican flavor. The spices are sautéed in olive oil (or your oil of choice) making it aromatic and beautiful to cook, eat, and enjoy! Notes of spicy and sweet, there is a lovely balance in both flavor and smell.

whisking dry ingredients into hot oil in a saucepan on the stove

You can make it your own!

The biggest reason we believe you’ll love our recipe too, is because you can make YOUR own! We give you notes on ingredients you can add more or less of to adjust the recipe to your family’s taste. You can make it spicier, or sweeter. Sometimes you have to make something a large handful of times to really get the hang of it, or to really know how you want to make it. My favorite part of cooking has become, not just trying new recipes, but making them my own for my family to enjoy!

cooked homemade enchilada sauce completed in saucepan

So, with all of that said, we hope you try and enjoy our family’s favorite recipe for homemade enchilada sauce! If you try it, please let us know in the comments if you enjoyed it, and any adjustments you made to make it your own! And be sure to share it and pin it! You can also sign up to our newsletter below for more education, inspiration, and tools to help you live abundantly through homesteading, homeschooling, and more.

homemade enchilada sauce over rice and chicken in a bowl

Quick and Easy Homemade Enchilada Sauce

The Abundant Living Farm

Whether it's for pouring over enchiladas, or rice and meat, this homemade enchilada sauce is quick and easy to make. This recipe creates a sauce that is rich in spices giving it an authentic Mexican flavor while making it aromatic and beautiful to cook, eat, and enjoy!

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Prep Time 5

Cook Time 10

Total Time 15

Cuisine Mexican

Servings 4

Ingredients

Dry Ingredients in Bowl

3 tbsp flour
1-2 tbsp chili powder (1 tbsp if sensitive to spice, 2 tbsp if you want the sauce to be spicier)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder or 1/4 tsp fresh chopped garlic (cooked in preheated olive oil before adding dry ingredients)
1/4-1/2 tsp dried or fresh oregano
1/4 tsp ground sea salt or preferred salt, add to taste
1/4-1 tsp ground cinnamon (less for more savory flavor, more for a sweeter aroma and flavor; more cinnamon is our preference!)

Wet Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 C broth (any will do; see notes)
1 tsp distilled white vinegar

Other

1/4 tsp ground pepper; add to taste
1/4 tsp ground sea salt; add to taste

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, measure and add the dry ingredients from the Dry Ingredients list above (flour, chili powder, ground cumin, garlic powder, dry or fresh oregano, sea salt, and ground cinnamon). Mix together with a whisk until well combined, and set the bowl aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil on medium heat for about 3 minutes. (You will know the oil is ready for cooking when a pinch of the dry ingredient mixture sizzles in the saucepan.)
3. Pour the dry ingredients from the bowl into the oil and whisk for approximately 1 minute. (You should smell the spicy and sweet aroma, and it should be darker in color.)
4. Whisk in the tomato paste quickly until mixed. (Do not mix too long to avoid burning the mixture, or turn the heat down.)
5. Pour the broth into the saucepan while whisking. Whisk for a few minutes until well combined with no lumps of the mixture.
6. If you lowered the heat, turn it back to a medium heat and simmer. Do not bring it to a boil. While simmering, whisk periodically, and cook until it thickens into a sauce. This usually takes a little over 5 minutes.
7. Once the sauce has thickened, remove the saucepan from the heat and add the vinegar, salt, and pepper to taste. (Sometimes I even add more cinnamon!) Add your sauce to your choice of meal or store for later.

Notes

Our recipe was adapted from Cookie and Kate

This recipe is quick to cook, but to cook it even faster, we recommend pre-mixing the dry ingredients and storing the mixture in a glass jar in your pantry or in the fridge or freezer for longer storage. It would take just minutes to pre-mix a few jars and have them on hand!
Don’t forget that you may have to make this sauce a few times before you figure out the perfect balance of spices for you or your family’s taste. I found out that my family liked more cinnamon than the original recipe called for because I actually accidentally used the wrong measurement. But for us, it was the best mistake! Try it ’til you like it!
Cooking with fresh oregano and fresh garlic will make the flavor more potent. So, if you are cooking with fresh ingredients, you may want to scale back the measurements. We included some ranges as a guide.
To cook with fresh garlic, it must be chopped and cooked in the pre-heated olive oil before step 3.
Per the original recipe’s suggestion, I keep my dry ingredient bowl and pre-measured tomato paste and broth all near the stove as soon as I begin. It cooks so quickly that there will be no time to measure those ingredients while cooking or you risk burning the mixture.
For broth suggestions: Vegetable broth is usually recommended, but eating more pro-metabolic we prefer a homemade collagen-rich bone broth. You can try matching the broth to the meat you are using for the meal (i.e. beef=beef broth, chicken=chicken broth)
The cooked enchilada sauce can be stored in an air tight container in the fridge up to 5 days, or the freezer up to 3 months. Remember to always leave room in any container when freezing!
Don’t forget to stop and enjoy the aroma!

Keyword Condiment, enchilada sauce, homemade, Sauce

Did you try to make our quick and easy homemade enchilada sauce? If so, leave us a comment below and let us know how it went! Share on Pinterest by hovering over the picture below and clicking on the Pin button.

Thanks for hanging out with us today!Build a life you love by building up your home, and live abundantly!