Quick and Easy Homemade Enchilada Sauce
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!
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!