Homemade Mexican Red Chili Sauce

If you make enchiladas, tamales, or any  Mexican or Tex-Mex style dish that requires red chili sauce, I urge you to bypass the canned stuff and make your own sauce from scratch.
It goes together very quickly, with just a couple of ingredients  and is far tastier than canned, plus you can adjust the level of heat according the the chilies you use.
(Most well stocked grocery stores carry dried peppers in the Mexican food/ingredient  section.)
The method is much easier than you might imagine:
- Simply rinse the peppers, remove the seeds and stems (discard.)    - Lightly toast the peppers in a dry skillet to bring out their flavor.
- Remove from skillet and place in a small sauce pot with water, bring to a boil and remove from heat.  Allow to soak for 10 minutes.
- Puree the softened pepper in a blender with some of the soaking water (or plain water if the soaking water seems bitter)
- Add 1 large clove of garlic, 2 whole cloves, 2 pepper corns, 1 or 2 teaspoons dried Mexican oregano, and salt.  Continue to blend until sauce is smooth.
- Pour the sauce through a sieve into a skillet, add a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Stir and simmer over medium heat for about 10 minutes.  Taste for seasonings.
Use immediately in your favorite recipe or cool and store in a glass container then refrigerate or freeze.





Elise, over at Simply Recipes has a wonderful step-by-step pictorial, with the type of chilies to select as well as the recipe.
Next up,  I'll show you one of my favorite ways of using this Red Chili Sauce.

Thank you for stopping by, and for any comments you would care to share!  Have a wonderful week.

xo ~mari  :o)