Use this authentic, mild, home-made enchilada sauce with your preferred filling, such as cheese, meat, chicken, etc. wonderful with tortilla chips as well!
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 mins |
| Additional Time: | 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 40 mins |
| Servings: | 16 |
| Yield: | 4 cups |
Ingredients
- 3 dried negro (pasilla) chile peppers, stemmed and seeded
- ¾ pound fresh tomatillos, husks removed
- ¼ white onion
- 1 clove garlic, peeled
- water to cover
- ¾ pound Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise
- ½ teaspoon chicken bouillon granules, or to taste
Instructions
- Place chile peppers in the bottom of a small saucepan. Add tomatillos, onion, and garlic. Pour in enough water to almost cover tomatillos. Arrange tomatoes over tomatillos.
- Cover saucepan and bring water to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until tomatoes soften, about 5 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat and let cool, about 10 minutes.
- Pour off most of the water and transfer mixture to a blender; puree until smooth. Season with chicken bouillon to taste.
- Pasilla chile peppers are long and slightly wrinkled. Do not confuse them with ancho chiles. If you cannot find them, you can substitute guajillo chiles, but the sauce will not be as dark.
- Traditional enchiladas are made with lightly-fried corn tortillas, never flour tortillas. Place some sauce in the bottom of a baking dish, arrange the enchiladas in rows and cover with more sauce and cheese before baking.
Reviews
Very good red enchilada sauce in which I followed directions fully since it was my first time trying this one. While my husband loved it.. I found it to be needing a bit more of a heat kick.. it was really mild. I found this to be so easy to make and so much better than canned.. I will always make my own, from now on. Thanks for the recipe!
This sauce is very delicious. I love the addition of tomatillos. It’s a red sauce that gives a slight nod to a green sauce. I have used ancho when I didn’t have pasilla, and a combo of both, sometimes I add a few guajillo or california chiles depending on what I have on hand or if I want a slight kick. There is wiggle room. This tastes great as is and with other chile improvisations. I press the blended mixture through a sieve and come out with a beautiful velvety sauce. I eat this with enchiladas, drizzled on quesadillas, migas, fried eggs, I dip chicken in it…so good. Thank you so much for this recipe!
I make my own enchilada sauces and have never used tomatillo in the red chili sauces so I wasn’t sure about this one. What s surprise. This is soo good. I did a couple of things different. Rather than steam the chilies I simmered them in a just enough water just to cover them (do not throw out the liquid from the chilies) then added the remaining ingredients except chicken base. You do not need it. The flavour is wonderful without it. I did an extra 2 garlic cloves and some fresh oregano. After I removed from the heat I added 2/3 of 15 ounce can of tomato sauce let cool and then blended it in the blender. Also You do not need to remove the seeds from the chilies. I am going to be making this ALL the time and it is an excellent salsa roja with chips. Thank you for sharing!
This is a good basic recipe for me but I have a few changes: I sauté an anaheim pepper and the onions, garlic rather than boil it first; then throw it and the tomatoes & tomatillos all in to puree it all; then back in the pan to heat together, adding lime juice and cilantro & seasonings (along with the chicken bouillon). Fabulous!!! Sufina
Smoky and smooth flavoured sauce. It’s thick enough to use as a dip and that’s exactly what I did with it. Now, I have to make more for my enchiladas! Thank you for the recipe.