Chilaquiles made with a base of freshly cooked, homemade tortilla chips that are then submerged in a flavorful tomato and dried chile salsa, resulting in a delicious, smoky flavor.
Para Leer Esta Receta para Chilaquiles En Español, Haz Click Aqui
Chilaquiles come in an endless variety of flavors – red, green, and guajillo salsa, to name a few. The name roughly mean to “be smothered in chilies”, which is in reference to the fried tortillas that are smothered in the salsa that is made from various dried chiles popular throughout Mexico. For me, red chilaquiles are basically breakfast nachos, and I love them!
To make some authentic red chilaquiles, you need to fry your own homemade tortilla chips. That said, in practice, many people use store bought chips and that works too!
Without a doubt, red chilaquiles with chicken is one of the meals that reminds me the most of growing up in Mexico. My mama would always cut the tortillas into little triangles and fry them and then on queue, my big brother and I would sneak in, grab a couple of them, and hide while we ate them.
This always seemed to annoy my mama and she would tell us to “stop eating all of the tortillas or the chilaquiles will never been ready to eat!” That usually was enough to convince us to return tortilla chips back, because of course we wanted the delicious chilaquiles, not just the chips!
To make the delicious red sauce for these chilaquiles, you need to combine the tomatoes, along with the dried chiles that have been de-veined, and boiled in water like in my Barbacoa Tacos recipe. Next, blend them in a blender before adding some additional seasonings and cooking over medium heat. Once cooked through, you submerge the tortilla chips in the salsa until they are completed covered.
You want to make sure that the red sauce is a little bit thick so that the chips don’t get too soggy. Of course that is up to you, as there are some people that like them that way. This chilaquiles recipe is an ideal breakfast for days when you have leftover chicken to use – and they are especially tasty when freshly cooked.
Knowing that everyone that I have made red chilaquiles for has loved it, I am happy to share my mama’s recipe so that you can enjoy it as much as I do! Let me know in the comments if you like it!
Products you may need for this chilaquiles recipe:
- Blender. You will need a good blender for one of the steps. I recommend this one by BlendTec – it is awesome and gets everything to the perfect consistency.
- Fryer. You can fry the tortillas in a pan with oil, but since you have to do a lot of them, it may be easier to use a fryer like this one.
- Guajillo Chiles. You can find these in many stores, or you can just make it easy and buy them here.
If you love these chilaquiles, you will also want to try these other Mexican favorites:
- 10 Tortillas cut into triangles and friend in oil (you can use pre-made tortilla chips as well)
- 4 Fresh red tomatoes.
- 1-2 guajillo chiles de-veined and boiled in water.
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1/4 onion
- salt and pepper to taste.
- Shredded Chicken
- Cheese
- Crema
- Chopped Onions and Cilantro
- Blend well the tomatoes, the garlic, the onion, and the chiles and cook over medium heat with a small amount of olive oil.
- Once cooked, add the fried tortilla chips to the skillet and submerge until every chip is well covered.
- Put the chips with the red sauce on a plate and top with chicken, crema, cheese, onion, and cilantro.
This sounds like exactly what I want to eat at this very moment!!
I’m such a sucker for Mexican food!
This is one of my favorite easy dinners! Your version looks awesome 🙂