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 to taste, 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 24-28 hours.
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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 the lard 1 Tbsp at a time.
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Mexican Chorizo Recipe Notes and Tips:
- Heat a cast iron skillet to 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.
- This spice mixture, including vinegar but not 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.
Chorizo Street Tacos – Budget Recipe – Make Ahead Party Recipe: $1.38 per person (4 chorizo tacos per person)
- This Mexican chorizo recipe made with one pound of ground pork will yield 16 street taco-size chorizo tacos, or 8 regular size corn tortilla tacos. Top with diced cilantro and onion.
- La Banderita makes the best yellow corn tortillas. Note that this link is for a 6 pack of 20 tortillas (120 tortillas). Corn tortillas freeze well and are easy to separate after freezing.
- Prepare and cook the Mexican chorizo recipe above. The cooked chorizo freezes well, or refrigerate cooked chorizo for up to three days.
- Brown the tortillas on a very hot cast iron skillet on both sides. Stack cooked tortillas under a kitchen towel, between two plates, or in a tortilla warmer .
- Tortilla warmers cost about $7 in grocery stores in California and Arizona, but if you can’t find tortilla warmers in your local grocery store, there’s always Amazon.
- Brown 4 street taco-size tortillas in a 12-inch cast iron skillet at a time. Check price on Lodge cast iron skillet.
- Fill each street taco corn tortilla with 1 oz (about 2 Tbsp) of cooked chorizo, and fold in half, stacking the tacos in a casserole dish (spray casserole with Pam, or wipe lightly with lard so the tacos don’t stick to the bottom). Cover and refrigerate or freeze until ready to serve. To reheat the chorizo tacos, bake, covered, in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes (or 40 minutes if cooking from frozen).
- Chorizo tacos are very flavorful and they don’t need many toppings. The best topping for chorizo tacos in my opinion is finely diced white onion mixed with diced cilantro. This mixture can be made ahead up to 4 days, as long as you start with very fresh cilantro.
- Additional toppings ideas: lime squeezes, shredded cabbage, pickled carrots, hot sauce, salsa, crema (I just add water to Daisy sour cream and transfer the thinned sour cream into a squeeze bottle for parties.
- I have these Winco squeeze bottles.
- Allow 4 street tacos per person if you’re serving other dishes. For every 4 guests, prepare 1 batch of the Mexican chorizo recipe above.
- Price per taco with chorizo and onion & cilantro topping: $0.35. Price per person allowing 4 tacos: $1.38 per person. Price per batch $5.50.
- $4 Ground pork (Fry’s sale.)
- $0.55 La Banderita yellow corn street tacos 20 count $0.69 (Fry’s sale; use 16 tortillas per chorizo batch.)
- $0.31 Onion 4 oz ($1 per lb, typical price; 1 lb yields 13 oz usable onion.)
- $0.12 Cilantro, 1/4 bunch ($0.49, typical price.)
- $0.50 chorizo spice mixture—this is an inflated price, will adjust when I measure bulk spice cost.
- $0.02 vinegar ($2.78 per gallon, 256 Tbsp in a gallon, typical price.)
- $0.00 lard (Reserve lard after cooking carnitas, pork roast, etc. for free lard, or use bacon grease in place of lard.)
- 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.
- Or, 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.