Easy Guajillo Sauce

Guajillo sauce is a staple in Mexican cuisine. The simple recipe is made with just a few ingredients and has a mildly spicy flavor, this salsa is used to make countless dishes or to enjoy drizzled on tacos, quesadillas, and sopes.

About

Guajillo sauce is a basic Mexican recipe made of dried guajillo chiles, tomatoes, onions, and spices. It has a bright red color and an earthy flavor with a mild spicy kick.

This flavorful salsa is used in many Mexican recipes, from moles like this tesmole soup, to birria de pollo, and even for making enchiladas. The recipe for this chili sauce allows you to simplify many other recipes, especially if you make a large batch and freeze it.

Salsa guajillo can be also used as a marinade for chicken, pork, or other types of meat. But also for flavoring your tamales dough, or just as a simple appetizer along with tortilla chips.

What Are Guajillo Chiles?

Guajillo chiles are mild spicer peppers native to Mexico. They are the dried version of mirasol chilies and their heat range is 2,500 to 5,000 on Scoville Heat Scale.

The dried chilies are used in many Mexican recipes, for making marinades, and sauces, to use as garnish, and even to prepare marmalades. To bring out its fruity flavor and aroma, guajillo chilies are often toasted on a comal or a cast-iron skillet.

And in order to make them easier to blend into sauces, they are normally soaked in water for a couple of minutes to soften them a bit.

Guajillo chilies are a type of pepper that contains a small amount of capsaicin, this component not only is what gives the spiciness to chili peppers but is also considered an anti-inflammatory.

Ingredients

• Guajillo chili peppers: This type of chili pepper is easily available online, but you can also find them at many Latin American and Mexican grocery stores, and some supermarkets like Walmart or Kroger also have them available in the international aisle. Read below for tips when buying them.
• Onion & tomatoes: To tone down the spiciness of the chiles, use those two ingredients.
• Spices: You will need garlic cloves, cumin seeds, black peppercorns, and oregano. Feel free to swap for powdered spices if you don’t have whole spices.

Tips for buying guajillo peppers

• Look for peppers that have an evenly dark-ish red color. The brighter the color, the newer the chiles are.
• The guajillo chilies should have a leathery texture, if it cracks when lightly bent, then means the chilies have been stored for a long period and lack flavor.

How To Make Chile Guajillo Sauce

Use gloves to prevent irritations on your hands when you clean the chilies.

First, remove the stem of each piece. Then, using kitchen shears, cut a chile longwise and open it.

The seeds will naturally fall down if you shake the chili peppers, so make sure you discard them all or use the tips of the shears to scrape the seeds.

If you want to remove some spiciness, cut the membranes as well, this is up to you.

Heat a cast-iron skillet or a comal over medium-low heat. Toast the chilies slightly, until fragrant (about 10 seconds per side).

Place toasted guajillo peppers in a bowl and cover with hot water. Let them sit for 10 minutes.

Next, cut tomatoes into quarters and place them in a small pan. Add about 1 cup of water, just enough to cover slightly the tomatoes. Cover the pan and allow to simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

Once the tomatoes have cooled down, place them in a blender with the cooking water.

Add onions, drain chilies and add to the blender as well. Add peppercorns, garlic, cumin seeds, oregano, and salt.

Blend until smooth or your desired consistency. The longer you blend, the smoother the guajillo chile sauce will be.

Adjust salt taste, then transfer the guajillo salsa to a bowl and serve, or store for later uses as suggested below.

How To Use

• APPETIZER: For dipping corn chips, bread, or raw vegetables.
• SOUPS: Add a few dollops in your sopita de fideo or in this pasta shell soup for an earthy kick.
• STEWS: Use it to make nopales with pork, or queso con chile rojo.
• TOPPING: Bring your tacos dorados to the next level with this guajillo sauce, or drizzle it over chicken sopes.

How To Store

This guajillo chili sauce can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days nicely stored in an airtight container or a jar.

If you want to make a large batch for your prep meals, here’s what you can do:

• Divide the sauce into zip bags, or freeze-proof containers. Label them and freeze them for up to 6 months.
• Or, pour the guajillo sauce into ice cube molds. Once the sauce has frozen, unmold and transfer the cubes to freezer bags.

FAQ

Similar Recipes

• Mexican adobo sauce.
• Authentic Enchilada sauce.
• Homemade Chamoy sauce.

Watch Guajillo Chili Sauce Video

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