Guajillo Chile

Steaming the chicken wrapped in parchment pouches and draped in a spiced chile sauce ensures such a tender, juicy result you’ll be shocked it’s not dark meat.

Caldo de camarón is a classic cantina dish, offered two ways, on its own or with the vegetables and shrimp.

The scent of homemade salsa roja always takes me back to my childhood. The aroma of rehydrating dried chiles mingling with fresh serrano chiles or jalapeños, tomatoes, onion, and garlic was a weekly occurrence in our household. It was always too spicy for my young palate, but I never got sick of the smell wafting through the house. Though I’ve grown into a heat-seeker as my palate has evolved, this version doesn’t have to be spicy at all. Adding a single serrano chile to the mix gives this mild .…

I use these creamy black beans in my breakfast burritos, but they can be enjoyed in many other dishes too. Make extra for bean and cheese tacos, or use them as a side dish with roast chicken. These black beans can also be used in tamales, sopes, or simply spread on a tostada with salsa. The possibilities are endless.

Menudo is typically served on weekends (whether that means family reunions, dressed in your Sunday best—or as an ideal hangover cure). The earthiness of the hominy and smoky chiles makes this dish one you’ll crave for weekends to come. Dried snow mushrooms are easy to find online and at many East Asian grocery stores. Their frilly, honeycomb-like texture provides a similar look and bite to the pancita—a.k.a. beef stomach—used in traditional menudo, making this dish accessible to almost anyone. W.…

Enchiladas are my comfort food: warm corn tortillas bathed in a slightly sweet, spicy, and bright sauce of chiles and tomato, wrapped around either a quick sauté of whatever veggies I have hanging out in the fridge or the creamy potato mash used here.

If you can’t eat just one totopo (tortilla chip), this is the salsa of your dreams. 

These extra-thick cousins of the tortilla are toasted on a comal or griddle and split open before they’re stuffed with a wide array of flavorful fillings.

Pork tacos al pastor may get the fame, but this fish al pastor deserves plenty of glory. A potent chile marinade adds lots of flavor before the fillets hit the grill, and a pineapple salsa is the perfect finishing touch.

This isn’t the thick harissa that resembles a paste. Treat it like your favorite barbecue sauce and smother grilled steak and chicken with it.

This irresistibly smoky-spicy condiment lasts for a month and perks up everything from scrambled eggs to lamb chops.

If you’ve never made posole, this is a good starter recipe. There are no hard-to-get cuts (like the pig’s head called for in many traditional versions), and most of the process is hands-off.

Tim Love's rib rules are few, but strict: Don't par-boil, rub liberally but never sauce, and once they're smoking, keep your hands off.

Four Horsemen’s glorious take on patatas bravas requires cooking the potatoes three times (once blanched, twice fried). We wouldn’t make you go through all that if it wasn’t worth it.

These richly-spiced enchiladas are a totally worthwhile weekend cooking project.

Add this harissa to your next tomato sauce or try it with our Roast Chicken with Harissa and Schmaltz.

This ingenious technique cooks the chicken in a purse with its own juices and a mix of spices. It slowly simmers the bird to a silky richness—an enticing side of chicken that we rarely see.

Everyone has his or her favorite Tacolicious taco, but this is mine, hands down. These short ribs cooked slowly with guajillos break down into the perfect braised meat: rich, a tad spicy, and appropriately messy—a true sign of greatness. You can ask your butcher to bone the ribs for you, or you can just cook them with the bone in and then bone them before shredding the meat. You'll need 5 pounds of bone-in short ribs to yield the required 3 pounds of meat. This dish can be on the spicy side, so if you're really sensitive to heat, cut back a little on the chiles.

This cowboy-style "bowl of red" is all about tender chunks of beef chuck and a five-chile-pepper purée.

Dickson's Farmstand Meats Dickson's Farmstand Meats is a unique butcher, sourcing their meats from farms with extraordinarily high standards. It is only natural (pun intended) that their chili recipe would be uncommonly good, loaded with flavor as well as detailed techniques for great results. This is not your granddaddy's chili! For example, the main meat is beef shank, a highly gelatinous cut that gives a luscious smoothness to the sauce. The meat is marinated overnight before cooking, and the seasoning gets complexity from smoky Turkish Urfa chile flakes. If you have the time, refrigerate the chili overnight before serving to mellow the flavors.

A blender and a saucepan are all you’ll need to cook this peanut-thickened chili. In authentic Mexican fashion, the nuts, along with the dried chiles, garlic, cilantro, and cumin, are blended with tomatoes and chicken broth to create an earthy, spicy stew base. Pulled rotisserie chicken—a brilliant time-saver—and fiber-rich beans complete the magic. To turn this into a “meatless Monday” meal, replace the chicken with another can of beans and use a good-quality veggie broth. And always remember to wear gloves while handling chiles.