How to start cooking Mexican food at home
The staples, three foundational dishes and simple sauces that make Mexican home cooking approachable, from fresh salsa and beans to tacos and a red chile sauce made from dried chiles.
Dried chiles, whole cumin, Mexican oregano, corn tortillas, limes, white onions, garlic, cilantro and a can of chipotles in adobo cover most of what a beginner needs. With those staples you can make fresh salsas, a pot of beans, tacos and a red sauce for enchiladas or braises. Most early progress comes from repeating a small set of dishes rather than cooking something new every night, because the same chopping, seasoning and heating skills show up again and again.
Mexican cuisine varies widely from region to region, so the dishes here are common home-cooking examples rather than a single standard. Start with the three areas that give the most practice for the least risk: fresh salsa, simple beans and filled tortillas. Each one teaches a skill you will reuse, from seasoning in small amounts to toasting dried chiles and warming tortillas evenly.
Stock the staples and learn how they behave
Dried chiles form the backbone of many sauces. Ancho chiles are dried poblanos and taste mildly sweet and fruity. Guajillo chiles bring medium heat with a bright tang, and pasilla chiles have a dark, raisin-like note. Before using them, wipe off dust, remove the stems and shake out the seeds. Then press them flat in a hot dry skillet for ten to twenty seconds per side, until they smell fragrant. If they smoke heavily or turn black, they will taste bitter, so start over with fresh chiles.
Corn tortillas behave differently from wheat tortillas. They crack when they are cold and dry, so warm them briefly in a dry skillet or wrap them in a towel and steam them until soft and pliable. Masa harina is a finely ground corn flour, not cornmeal, made from nixtamalized corn that has been cooked with calcium hydroxide, or cal. That treatment is why the flour forms a dough with water and salt, and why ordinary corn flour or cornmeal will not hold together as tortilla dough. Limes, white onions and cilantro are best bought close to the day you cook. Mexican oregano tastes earthier and more citrusy than the common Mediterranean kind, so look for it in shops that sell Mexican spices if you can.
Buy cumin as whole seeds when you can. Toast them in a dry pan for a minute or two, until they smell warm and nutty, then grind them as you need them. Pre-ground cumin that has sat on a shelf for months tastes noticeably flatter. Dried oregano should smell herbal and sharp. A jar that smells like hay or cardboard is past its best and will add little to a pot of beans or a marinade.
Three dishes to practice first
Start with pico de gallo or a similar fresh salsa. Dice ripe tomatoes, a little white onion, a seeded jalapeño or serrano and some chopped cilantro. Salt lightly and add the lime juice just before serving, because lime and salt draw out liquid and soften the texture if the salsa sits too long. Wash your hands after handling hot chiles and avoid touching your eyes until they are clean.
Next, cook a pot of pinto or black beans. Soak dried beans overnight, or quick-soak them by boiling for two minutes, covering and resting for an hour. Simmer them with onion, garlic and a little cumin until they are soft. Add some salt early and adjust it once the beans are tender, when you can taste the broth and correct the seasoning.
Finally, make tacos with a simple filling such as seasoned chicken or sautéed mushrooms. Rub chicken thighs with cumin, garlic, dried oregano and salt, then cook them in a hot skillet until browned and cooked through. Chicken should reach 165°F (74°C), the commonly used safe minimum for poultry. Serve everything in warm corn tortillas with the salsa, a squeeze of lime and chopped onion.
To assemble tacos well, stack two warm corn tortillas so they stay sturdy, spoon the filling into the center rather than the edges, and add the salsa last so the tortilla does not turn soggy before you eat it. If the tortillas cool, warm them again before folding, because cold corn tortillas crack.
Easy sauces to practice
A red chile sauce is a good next step because it uses toasted dried chiles and teaches you to balance heat, earthiness and salt. Toast two or three anchos and guajillos as described above, then soak them in hot water for about twenty minutes until soft. Blend the chiles with garlic, a little of the soaking water, salt and a splash of vinegar. Strain the mixture if you want a smooth sauce, then simmer it for several minutes to deepen the flavor. The sauce works well on enchiladas, braised pork or a pot of chicken.
A green salsa is quicker. Roast tomatillos and a jalapeño until they are blistered and soft, then blend them with garlic, cilantro, a pinch of salt and lime juice. Taste for salt and acid before serving, because tomatillos vary in tartness. For a smoky option, blend one canned chipotle in adobo with a fresh tomato and a little garlic. Chipotles in adobo are smoky, fairly hot and salty from the sauce, so start with a small amount and add more only after tasting. Keep all of these sauces refrigerated and use them within a few days.
Most of a chile's heat is concentrated in the pale veins that hold the seeds, and the seeds are hot mainly because they touch those veins. The flesh itself is much milder. Removing the veins and seeds before you toast or blend makes a sauce milder and leaves you room to adjust. If you want more heat later, add a small amount of finely chopped fresh chile at the end. It is much easier to add heat in small steps than to correct a sauce that has been made too hot.