How to Make Enchilada Sauce
Enchilada sauce is so easy to make! This red enchilada sauce recipe comes together in ten minutes. I've tried all the other recipes and this is the best!
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 28, 2024
I’ve been working on my enchilada game lately, for both the cookbook and an upcoming enchilada recipe. There is an art to making great enchiladas, and the sauce is a key component.
I thought I’d share my tested and perfected enchilada sauce recipe today, in case you want to try it on your favorite enchilada recipe. It’s ready in under ten minutes, and I promise, it’s so tasty you won’t want to go back to the store-bought kind again.
When I developed my go-to sauce (first seen on my spinach artichoke enchiladas), I tried at least five of the top sauce recipes on Google, all with different ingredients and techniques.
I tried making sauce with tomato sauce, which tasted too raw and was kind of goopy. I tried making sauce with blended diced tomatoes, and it had the same issues. I tried sauce without any tomato ingredients, and it didn’t taste quite like the enchilada sauce I grew up eating, or the sauce at my favorite Mexican restaurants. I tried sauces made without any thickener (like flour or cornstarch), and they pooled at the bottom and turned my enchiladas into a soupy, texture-less casserole.
Finally, after some experimentation and cross-referencing with America’s Test Kitchen, I landed on the perfect enchilada sauce. Vegetable broth forms the base of the sauce, but it’s only added after you make a simple roux of flour and oil. You need a full three tablespoons of each to properly thicken the sauce. I tried making this sauce with a gluten-free flour blend and that worked great as well.
The Best Enchilada Sauce
Four reasons to love this recipe:
- This sauce is full of authentic Mexican flavor. It comes from a combination of dried spices, which are sautéed in oil to bring out their best, and umami-rich tomato paste.
- The cinnamon is optional since some people just don’t like it in savory applications, but just a pinch adds some lovely warmth and complexity.
- The final kicker is a tiny splash of vinegar, which really amps up the flavor.
- Unlike canned enchiladas sauces, this homemade sauce is free of unnecessary processed ingredients and MSG (that’s monosodium glutamate, which gives my mom migraines).
I love this sauce and I’m confident you will, too, since it’s gotten rave reviews on my spinach artichoke enchiladas and veggie black bean enchiladas.
Please let me know how this recipe turns out for you in the comments! Your feedback keeps me going.
Watch How to Make Enchilada Sauce
Homemade Enchilada Sauce
This homemade red enchilada sauce has authentic Mexican flavor! It’s so good and easy, you’ll never go back to store-bought sauce again. You can even make a double batch and freeze half of it for later. Recipe as written below yields about 2 cups (16 ounces) sauce.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons flour (whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and gluten-free flour blends all work!)
- 1 tablespoon ground chili powder (scale back if you’re sensitive to spice or using particularly spicy chili powder)
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon salt, to taste
- Pinch of cinnamon (optional but recommended)
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- This sauce comes together quickly once you get started, so measure the dry ingredients (the flour, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, oregano, salt and optional cinnamon) into a small bowl and place it near the stove. Place the tomato paste and broth near the stove as well.
- In a medium-sized pot over medium heat, warm the oil until it’s hot enough that a light sprinkle of the flour/spice mixture sizzles on contact. This might take a couple of minutes, so be patient and don’t step away from the stove!
- Once it’s ready, pour in the flour and spice mixture. While whisking constantly, cook until fragrant and slightly deepened in color, about 1 minute. Whisk the tomato paste into the mixture, then slowly pour in the broth while whisking constantly to remove any lumps.
- Raise heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a simmer, then reduce heat as necessary to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook, whisking often, for about 5 to 7 minutes, until the sauce has thickened a bit and a spoon encounters some resistance as you stir it. (The sauce will thicken some more as it cools.)
- Remove from heat, then whisk in the vinegar and season to taste with a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper. Add more salt, if necessary (I usually add another pinch or two). Go forth and make enchiladas!
Notes
Enchilada sauce recipe adapted from my spinach artichoke enchiladas.
Storage suggestions: Extra enchilada sauce will keep well in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Or, freeze it for up to 3 months. Let it cool to room temperature before transferring to a wide-mouth mason jar, leaving some room at the top for expansion (don’t screw on the lid completely until the mixture is fully frozen), or a freezer bag (remove excess air before sealing).
Make it gluten free: Just use gluten-free all-purpose flour blend. I tried with Bob’s Red Mill brand and it worked great.
Make it tomato free: You can omit the tomato paste. You might want to up the spices a bit. The sauce won’t taste quite like the enchilada sauce you might buy at the store, but it will still be good!
Change it up: The chili powder, cumin and garlic powder are essential here, but feel free to change up the other spices to suit your preferences.
If you love this sauce: Check out more of my Mexican recipes here!
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
Very tasty sauce! I made a couple of changes but mainly stuck to the recipe. Easy Saturday night meal!
I can’t wait to try it! Can this be frozen?
LOL, Nevermind! I looked for the info in the notes, but it was at the top of the recipe! Duh!
Great recipe. I tripled the recipe for a large crowd. I did put a pinch of cinnamon. It reminds me a lot of mole’. I would like to try a little cocoa in it too.
Thank you for this delicious enchilada sauce recipe! You’ve created a convert. Much better than store-bought and easy to make. I just finished my second batch of chicken enchiladas using your sauce and, I must say, this sauce takes my enchiladas up a couple notches. This time I used gluten-free flour and chicken stock (because that’s what I had) and it turned out great. I double the recipe and even add a little extra water (maybe 1/4-1/2 cup?) to thin the sauce and stretch it out a bit for two pans of enchiladas. I do enjoy vegetarian dishes and plan to try your enchilada recipes some time soon. Just discovered your website and I’m seeing many enticing ideas. Best to you in all your endeavors. Bon apetit!
Thank you for letting me know, Terry! So glad you are enjoying the enchilada sauce.
Wow–was this ever delicious! And easy! No more store-bought enchilada sauce for us ever again. It has really marvelous flavor. The only reason I made this, is because I had no enchilada sauce in my pantry, and no time to go to the store. What a happy-ending dilemma, and a new found excellent recipe! Thanks!!!
Hooray! I’m glad you found my recipe. Thank you, Claire!
Awesome directions and great sauce! Thank you!
Thank you, Michelle!
Meant to leave 5 stars! So good!
This sauce was AMAZING. Made them with your veggie black bean enchiladas and we were licking our plates (usually the dogs take care of that for us when we load them in the dishwasher..I think they were VERY disappointed). Thank you!
Hehe, poor pups! I’m so glad you all enjoyed the sauce!
“Real” enchiladas are made with corn tortillas. I don’t mean that in a snobby way; just FYI if you want to try it. Flour tortillas get gummy. I warm up an inch or so of enchilada sauce in a wide skillet, then submerge each tortilla briefly. Cold/room temp sauce doesn’t work; and pouring sauce over the enchiladas doesn’t work to suffuse the tortillas with flavor and soften the tortilla so it doesn’t crack. The real REAL authentic method is to fry the tortilla in a little oil, dip in sauce, and fry again, which is both tedious AND messy, and which nobody in my Mexican family never wanted to do, so we’d go to a restaurant for enchiladas! :D I do the shortcut above, or an even shorter shortcut: I cut the tortillas into little strips, mix in sauce,and layer (tortilla mix, filling, tortilla mix, extra sauce, cheese) to make an enchilada casserole (no rolling! no burned fingers!). ¡Buen provecho!
*ever. Oops! Unless you want to read that in a Southern accent. :)
Thanks! I’m aware. I’ve talked about this in another post, but my mom always made enchiladas with flour tortillas and I prefer them that way. Love those crispy edges. Someday, I’ll have to give the real way a shot. I’ve tried just subbing warm corn tortillas for the flour tortillas, and meh. Sounds like dipping them in sauce is key.
Because if my carb issues (not diabetic related), I have to use the low carb tortillas. And you know what? With your sauce, with my own flare added, and my filling….these seriously were the best enchiladas I have ever had. No joke! So to the lady that was trying to make you politically correct? Bye bye
Second time I’ve made this sauce and it is amazing! Why did I ever bother buying the jars when I can make this so quickly and easily and can use my homemade veg broth for extra vitamins and minerals.
Love it.
Thank you, Hayley! I bet your homemade broth is amazing.
Wow! I have made enchiladas using the can sauce from the store before and we did not care for them. I was a bit skeptical that we would like this, but again, WoW! We will definitely make this again. So good!
Yay, thanks Karen!
made it last minute when we realized there was no canned sauce in the house. I’ve never thought of doing it myself. This was very simple and quick to prepare and more delicious that I could have hoped!! Do you know if leftovers will freeze? I only ended up needing half but it would be a shame to waste(of course we could have enchiladas again tomorrow and none would complain!)
I always make a 5 x batch and freeze extra sauce. It freezes very well.
This looks just right, going to try it tonight, thanks! First enchiladas for the kids.
(Surprised to see McDonald’s ads all over the page, doesn’t feel very C&K).
I’m sorry to hear about the ads, Amy. I’ll try to track them down and make them go away! I’d never purposefully put those ads on my site.
How spicy is this if the recipe is followed exactly?
Thanks for this! I want to make Enchiladas for tomorrow ‘s supper!
I have only used canned enchilada sauce before trying your recipe tonight. I was making chicken enchiladas for dinner when I realized that I had forgotten to get the sauce. I love to cook, but had never even thought about making my own sauce, until then. So Like any other time I’m looking for a recipe, I went to my favorite “cook book”, also known as GOOGLE! Lol! Yours was the first one that popped up, so I opened it to see what all I would need. Amazingly, I actually had everything I needed (except I only had chicken broth, not vegetable) to make it. My husband loves my enchiladas, so when he found out that I had made the sauce instead of buying it, he was a little nervous that they would not be as good. Before he made it to the table he told me not to ever buy the canned stuff again!! Lol! He apparently had snuck a bite or two while fixing his plate, and immediately could tell the difference and how much Better it was with homemade sauce! Thanks for the recipe! You have definitely forever changed my enchiladas!!
Success! That’s fantastic to hear. Thank you for letting me know!
THANK YOU for this recipe. I have made veggie enchiladas with this sauce 4 or 5 times and it always turns out perfect. My partner and I always wax poetic about how delicious it is for about 15 minutes every time we have enchiladas.
Hooray! Thank you, Breezy. Delighted to hear it.
Just made this for dinner tonight (to go with your veggie black bean enchiladas). Both were delicious! But, this sauce was soooo spicy, too much for me and my year old (but my husband loved it). Next time, I’ll start with far less chili powder and add more if desired! If your sensitive to spice or cooking for children, you might scale back that one ingredient.
Thanks, Amanda! It sounds like you might have some spicy chili powder, but then again, I am a spice lover. I appreciate your feedback!
You wouldn’t think something so easy would be so good. Thank you for the great recipe.
Hooray, thank you!
This is a phenomenal and easy recipe. My husband has to follow a renal diet and this provides a safer sauce. Thank you! I also appreciate that the tomato paste can be omitted to fit his needs as well!!!!
Jo, I’m so glad this recipe works well for you both. Thanks for letting me know!
Loved it. I’ve tried 4 other recipes and this one is perfect! Thanks! Celiac friendly!
I used to buy a jar of enchilada sauce when I lived in the UK and loved it. Then I moved to France and have never found anything similar (the French aren’t really in to other cuisines!). Have just made this and it tastes just like the one I used to buy. Delicious! Thank you so much. :)
this recipe is fantastic! love it.
This. Is. Amazing! Just made it with almond flour, and it is perfection on flavor:) Also added onion powder.
Made this tonight because I have found store bought sauces, well quite frankly they suck. Only changes I made was adding an extra tablespoon of tomato paste, about a 1/2 teaspoon extra of the garlic, and a heaping tablespoon of dark brown sugar. Oh, and some smoke paprika. Flavor bomb on my chicken enchiladas! Love home cooking, and the filling for enchiladas came from my garden, except for the onion and chicken! Thank you for the inspiration!
Forgot to give this 5 stars,
Just made this for some chicken enchiladas and it was delicious! I cooked the chicken in the sauce and I couldn’t be happier with it.
I just wanted to pour it in a bowl and eat it as it was a soup. It was so good! (I did succeed to keep it until the enchiladas were ready)
Hi, I made this sauce minus the vinegar and used chicken broth instead of vegetable. It is awesome. I ended up making another pot of it as I ran out making enchiladas. My family said these were the best enchiladas that I ever made. Thank you. I will have to check out your other recipes.
This is amazing! I added a little bit of minced fresh banana pepper but otherwise left it the same. Huge hit. So delicious! I will definitely make this again
This was a delicious, perfect recipe. I can’t praise it more.
Delicious recipe.
There are amazing and easy to make! The homemade sauce is the perfect complement, and I used the cinnamon whenever suggested.
If you’re looking for something healthy and different from the everyday I highly recommend them!
So good! I decreased the chili powder for my spice resistant kids.
Have you ever tried making this with low sodium options? Like limit the salt, and a low sodium vegetable broth? My husband is on a low sodium diet and trying to get as home made as possible. Thank you
Salt is a key flavor booster, but by all means use low-sodium broth and limit the salt while cooking. If you then sprinkle a good sea salt (fan of Maldon) on at the table, you will have fresh burst of salt with far less sodium.
Great recipe! I also add a few teaspoons of spicy smoked paprika and use half veggie broth half frenchpressed coffee. Yum!
Made this tonight, I did add just a little of chilies with adobo sauce, but as I grabbed the ingredients out of the cabinet my daughter n law had put a bob mills pancake mix ( not in a container, opened) and it got knocked out and into the sauce, salvaged it and so far good, so don’t know might want to use it instead of flour because I can taste the sweetness of the flour, tastes great tho, darc
Hi there! I love this blog! I am planning on making a large batch of this sauce and giving it as gifts for Christmas. Any thoughts in how this can be stored long-term?
I just made this in preparation for a Mexican casserole I’m going to make. It is so good I wanted to drink it! I imagine in a few days when I make the casserole it will have gotten even better. Thank you for posting this!
This sauce is soooooo tasty. Followed the recipe exactly. I have a vegetarian friend and I needed enchilada sauce. Very authentic.
Turned out really nice. Instead of veg. stock I used a mixture of veg. chicken stock and lime juice that had briefly been boiled with cilantro stems. I used champagne vinegar for the lighter taste. I made carnitas yesterday and am using this for leftover enchiladas.
This sauce is wonderful! The flavors are very vivid, but at the same time not excessive. Definitely keeping it in my recipe folder!
And I love the square measuring spoons that you use! The moment I saw them at Sur la Table I knew I couldn’t live without them any longer :)
Mom used to make enchilada sauce from scratch. I think she used more chili powder than this called for but this certainty compares to the same rich flavor. I simmered beef and pintos (added later) and used the stock. I did add onion and garlic. Your sensible approach (put the dry ingredients together by stove) was good idea. Mixed beef with pintos, green chilisand some rice. Grilled the corn/ flour tortillas, stuffed, rolled chaladas. Spread a light layer of cottage cheese over the cigars and smothered with sauce. Another light layer of graded cheese the topped with grilled jalapenos and baked. Pretty darn good. Thanks for your recipe…and sharing the love of cooking! First time blog here.
I made this sauce tonight for bean enchiladas and the whole family loved it, even my picky kids. (I cut the chili powder to one teaspoon for them.) This one is a keeper for us and will go into regular rotation. Thank you! :)
Kate, this sauce is delicious. I’m already looking forward to the next batch.
The worst. Tastes like nothing.
This is just great! thank you so much. Cinnamon is a nice touch and i love the flavor it brings to mexican food. Cheers.
Enchiladas might be my favorite Mexican dish, which is saying something because I love Mexican food. I rarely make them though because I hate buying the sauce that has weird unnecessary ingredients. I was really craving them and found this recipe on Google and made it last week. IT IS SO GOOD. After the holidays I plan to make a big batch so I can throw it in the freezer for easy dinners. I would give it 10 stars if I could Thank you!
I made this sauce today to put over pulled pork enchiladas. The sauce was perfectly seasoned and not at all like some of the other heavy sauces where all you taste is the chili powder. The pork I used had been slow cooked in bbq sauce that was diluted by the natural juices of the pork while cooking so it only had a slight bbq flavor. Because this enchilada sauce wasn’t heavy in chili powder it was the perfect sauce and didn’t overpower the meat. I topped the enchiladas off with a dollop of plain yogurt because I was out of sour cream and it was YUMMY! This sauce recipe is a keeper.
I forgot to say that I added 1/2 tsp of onion powder to the dry ingredients and I didn’t use the cinnamon because my husband isn’t a fan of cinnamon.
I am very finicky about my enchilada sauce. I love this recipe. The only thing I did differently is use my home made bone broth. It gives it such a rich flavor compared to canned. Thank you for the recipe. Definitely a winner!
Truly delicious. I was disappointed when I used it up. This recipe is now my go to recipe for my base for making anything Mexican. I will never buy canned again.