15 Recipes to Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month

In many parts of Mexico, enfrijoladas are often fresh tortillas dipped in a bean sauce and folded over. Lupe Romero Vidal and her friend Chabela Cortés García of Hidalgo filled theirs with chorizo or leftover barbecued chicken and served them for brunch when we visited, but just about any leftover meat would be delicious—or even scrambled eggs. You’ll have leftover bean sauce, which happens to make an excellent dip for tortilla chips.

A visit to the Santa Fe School of Cooking reminded us how amazing—and easy—homemade tortillas can be (try them with our Spicy Lamb Tacos).

These unusual, wonderful tacos are the creation of chef Donnie Masterton at Taco Lab by Tacolicious, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Rich, savory, and pleasantly chewy, they hit the spot even for meat lovers.

Masterson’s recipe focuses on just the pineapple, first slathered with al pastor paste and then roasted. He then chops it up and blends it with ordinary pico de gallo to create something extraordinary. Use the extra spice paste to slather on meaty mushrooms like maitake before roasting, or on pork shoulder before braising.

This general recipe can work with infinite fillings. Dream big!

Tip: If you have leftover pork, add it to eggs for a hearty brunch or freeze as a future gift to yourself. Best eaten with a Mexican Coke!

Cookbook author Marcela Valladolid showed us how to put on a tamalada—a tamale-making party—at her house near San Diego; this was one of the several tamales that day. Dried guajillo chiles have a rich, fruity flavor and mild heat. Look for chiles as supple as soft leather—they are fresher and better-tasting than dried-out crackly ones.

Perfectly cooked plantains require ripe fruit. If these starchy cooking bananas stand until they have plenty of black spots and are moderately soft, they’ll fry up nice and sweet and caramelize outside as they brown.

Vidal Mozqueda, a backyard griller in San Francisco who works as a busser in the city’s Acquerello restaurant, buys a thinly sliced skirt steak at a carnicería. He grills it over a searing mesquite lump-charcoal fire.

Take this hearty, smoky, pozole rojo on the go. If you want to skip the added time and effort of cooking dried hominy, feel free to use canned (we won’t tell!).

Valladolid shows how to make these tangy green tomatillo tamales. Use fewer jalapeños and/or seed them if you want a mild filling.

Unlike most traditional moles that use chocolate to sweeten the dish, this one is bright red and is full of both flavor and extra spice because of the variety of chiles and spices added to the dish. This recipe comes to us from Carlos Cruz-Santos of China Poblano restaurant in Las Vegas and is inspired by his mother.

Alicia Villanueva, owner of Alicia’s Tamales Los Mayas, writes about this filling recipe saying, “The best thing about selling in the street was getting to know the people. More than anything they had an interest in Mexican culture, and they loved the tamales. You have this imagination about what the world is like, but then you come here, and there are so many different people. It’s something beautiful to me to see so many cultures. They wanted more vegetarian food! And I just wanted everyone to try it.”

Pickled tomatillos are fantastic in a Bloody Mary or with charcuterie for a unique bite.

Blocks from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood location of ¡Lotería! Grill, wow guests with chicharrón de queso shaped into a golden pyramid. Executive chef Jimmy Shaw and team cook the Mexico City-style treats on a giant griddle; for guaranteed success at home, we baked smaller versions on parchment. Shaw says to think of them like a huge version of the toasted cheese you get when your grilled cheese sandwich or quesadilla spills onto the griddle. You can break it off to use as a chip, crumble it into a tortilla, or add it to a salad.