Recipe right at the top! Scroll down for tips.
Spicy Mexican Chorizo recipe—how to make chorizo from scratch:
Mexican Chorizo
FINAL Mexican Chorizo recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground pork
- 3 Tbsp paprika sweet, not smoked
- 1 Tbsp cayenne
- 1 Tbsp Mexican oregano or 1 tsp Italian oregano
- 1.5 tsp garlic powder
- 1.5 tsp onion powder
- 1.5 tsp cumin ground
- .25 tsp ground bay leaf (grind bay leaves in coffee grinder)
- pinch allspice
- 1.5 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp salt Add more to taste if needed after browning.
- 2 oz white vinegar
- 4 Tbsp lard or oil
Instructions
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Mix all spices, vinegar, and lard in a medium bowl.
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Add ground pork and mix until all spices are thoroughly incorporated.
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Chill pork mixture for 24-48 hours, optional.
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Cook chorizo on high heat in a heavy skillet until browned and cooked through.
Recipe Notes
If the ground pork is fatty, reduce or eliminate the lard. If the chorizo seems dry while browning, add additional lard 1 Tbsp at a time.
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Mexican Chorizo Recipe Notes and Tips:
- Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat for several minutes. Open windows and turn on stove vent. The spices will burn your eyes and lungs if you brown the chorizo at too high a heat. Press all of the chorizo flat into the hot skillet like a giant burger and leave it alone for several minutes. This will brown one side of the chorizo using only medium heat, which will minimize the spicy smoke in the house. Flip and leave it alone again for several minutes. Once both sides are well browned, turn the heat to low, break up the chorizo into crumbles, and cook on low heat for about 10 minutes. You won’t be able to tell when it’s done by color since the chorizo has so many spices in it, so continue cooking and stirring until you are sure it is cooked through.
- It honestly makes no difference in taste if you refrigerate the chorizo before using or not, but traditionally, refrigerating the chorizo mixture for 24-48 hours is called for.
- I use “bay salt” in most of my Mexican dishes because it’s simpler than fishing out bay leaves, or trying to get bay leaves to emulsify in a cheap blender.
- Bay Salt: In a coffee grinder pulse a ratio of 1 dried bay leaf to 1 tsp pink Himalayan salt (chunky pink Himalayan salt works best). Pulse until the mixture is very fine, like baking powder.
- Use Bay Salt in place of salt in recipes that call for bay leaves. In this Mexican Chorizo recipe, I use bay salt instead of the two ingredients listed of ground bay leaf and salt.
- I have a vintage Braun coffee grinder, but this Mueller coffee grinder looks similar and the motor has the same 150 watts as the original Braun coffee grinder.
- The spice mixture in the recipe above, including the vinegar but not the lard, also makes a quick enchilada sauce. Add about 4 cups of water, and extra salt to taste. Whisk and bring to a boil. If you want a thick enchilada sauce, stir 2 tsp cornstarch into the spices before adding the water.
- This recipe makes a spicy chorizo. Reduce cayenne for a more mild chorizo.
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Check Amazon prices for bulk spices used in this Mexican Chorizo recipe:
- I like to grind whole spices in a coffee grinder so I’ve linked to whole and ground spices.
- Bay leaves whole or ground bay leaves
- Cumin (whole) or ground cumin
- Mexican oregano
- Allspice ground or whole allspice (Use one allspice berry per batch of chorizo.)
- Garlic powder or dried garlic
- Onion powder or dried minced onions
- Paprika
- Cayenne powder or chile de arbol peppers (Pop off stems before grinding.)
More easy ways to use chorizo:
- For chorizo and eggs, mix 1 oz browned chorizo for every two eggs, and scramble in butter. Don’t add salt as the chorizo is salty.
- Fry eggs and top with the browned chorizo and salsa.
- For chorizo egg burritos, scramble 1 oz browned chorizo for every two eggs, mix with fried potatoes, onions, pico de gallo, etc. and roll mixture in large flour tortillas.
Earn a $250 statement credit when you spend $3,000 in 6 months on a new American Express Blue Cash Preferred credit card: Apply for an American Express Card with my link here.
- Amex Blue Cash Preferred gives you 6% cashback at the grocery store, and 3% cashback on gas.
