Red Enchilada Sauce

I love enchiladas, so when I realized how quick it was to make my own red enchilada sauce it was game on.

You can make this sauce to use for (of course) enchiladas, or you can use it to make my flavor-packed Mexican Rice Bowl.

What You Need to Make Red Enchilada Sauce

Here’s what you need to make this sauce:

Dried chilies: I use a mixture of guajillo, ancho, and arbol chilies.

Onion and garlic: To add flavor.

Chicken stock: To steep the chilies, onions, and garlic in.

Oregano: For flavor.

Mexican chocolate: To add a bit of depth and sweetness.

Kosher salt: To bring it all together.

How to Make Red Enchilada Sauce

Making enchilada sauce is so easy, you’ll never buy store-bought again!

Step 1: Prep your ingredients.

The first thing you’ll do is trim, deseed and clean your chilies. To do this, I use a pair of kitchen sheers to cut off the stems, and then cut down the middle of each chili to remove the seeds. Once done, I like to rinse them under water.

This is also the time to peel and quarter your onion and peel and slightly crush your garlic.

Step 2: Steep your chilies.

Now add the chilies, onions, garlic and 3 cups of chicken stock to a pot. Bring it to a boil, then cover, take off of the heat and let steep for 20 minutes.

Step 3: Add everything to a blender.

Now, with a slotted spoon, add the chilies, garlic, and onions to a blender. Add the salt, oregano, Mexican chocolate, one cup of the chili water (aka the stock that the chilies were steeping in) and one up of fresh water.

Step 4: Blend everything.

Blend everything on high until smooth. Keep in mind if your blender isn’t that powerful, you may want to pour the mixture through a strainer in case there are any big pieces of chilies, etc.