In just minutes and simple ingredients you can kick up your enchiladas by making your very own enchilada sauce from scratch!
Who else loves all things enchiladas? Basically you’re taking an almost perfect food, the burrito, and smothering it with a delicious sauce, cheese, and baking it. How can you go wrong? My husband could eat burritos (and enchiladas) every single day and be happy. No, really. I once tested this theory and made our homemade flour tortillas for a whole week and fed him burritos every night. By the end, he was sad the burrito run was over. Ha. 
Enchiladas though, we don’t eat as often. Mainly because they require a little more effort to make. We’ve made them from scratch with delicious refried beans and another enchilada sauce from scratch, but I’ve gotta say, I love this enchilada sauce so much more! Even better, it used some of my fresh made vegetable stock. Tomato paste, although you can totally make it from scratch, it’s one of the few things that I have determined the cost (re: time) / benefit make me prefer to buy it.
This sauce comes together so quickly, too so it’s best to prep everything in advance by mixing the spices, and gathering the stock, paste, and vinegar. Then in a small sauce pan you just heat the oil and gradually add the ingredients.
And then in 10 minutes you’ll have a delicious, from scratch, sauce just waiting to be slathered on some enchiladas!
Making this sauce for your favorite enchiladas? I’d love to hear how they turned out. Share them with me on Instagram or Facebook and follow me on Pinterest!
Enchilada Sauce From Scratch
Print Pin RateIngredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons flour all purpose or whatever you have
- 1 tablespoon ground chili powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon salt to taste
- Pinch of cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste make your own! http://www.servedfromscratch.com/tomato-paste-scratched-it/
- 2 cups vegetable stock (or chicken stock) make your own! http://www.servedfromscratch.com/vegetable-stock-from-scratch/
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Mix the dry ingredients all together in a small bowl: flour, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, oregano, salt, and cinnamon. Open the tomato paste and vegetable stock and have that ready to go.
- In a medium sauce pan, heat the olive oil on medium. It'll be ready when if you sprinkle a tiny bit of flour in it and it sizzles. Once it's ready, add the dry ingredient mixture and whisk constantly for 1 minute, be careful it doesn't burn.. Slowly add the vegetable stock and tomato paste and continue whisking until lumps are whisked out.
- Bring heat to medium high to bring to a simmer, once simmering, lower the heat so that it's gentle simmer and cook for 5-7 minutes, whisking often. This will thicken the sauce.
- Remove from heat and whisk in the vinegar and pepper and salt to taste. As it cools it will continue to thicken.
- Slather it on your favorite enchiladas, or let cool and store in fridge for 2-3 days.
Oh my Lanta. I think I’d bathe in this stuff if I could… it looks THAT good! I cannot wait to try this out (and put it on everything)!
😀
I need to give this a try. I have never been impressed with the store bought versions. We love Mexican food, and this would be a great addition to our themed dinners for sure.
Thanks, Gloria! As with all homemade condiments, the best part is being able to customize them to your taste, too!
I would never have guessed you’d add cinnamon! This is fantastic and so very simple! Way better than anything I can find store-bought for sure!
I love making my own condiments and sauces. Homemade is always best! This enchilada sauce sounds delicious! No more will I have to change my menu plans when I don’t have enchilada sauce in the pantry because I always have these ingredients at hand! Thank you for a delicious recipe!
What a great resource for a clean recipe. You do make this look so easy and even though I take short cuts here and there, I really do love to cook from scratch. Going to definitely try this out on my hubby. He also will eat something he love for a week or more and not get tired of it. Thanks for this!
It’s cool if I eat this by the spoonful, right? Okay, just checking.
It’s amazing how much better these types of sauces and condiments tase when they’re homemade. Sure, store bought is technically more convenient. And I can somewhat understand when people eye roll the idea of making these things homemade. BUT. It’s so worth it. And I don’t think people realize it until they do homemade themselves. This sauce is *everything*.
Oh man, we LOVE enchiladas in our house. We never make our own sauce though. I love how easy your enchilada sauce is to make! I bet it tastes soooo much better than the canned stuff. Definitely bookmarking this for our next enchilada night!
Thanks, Trish! Enjoy!
We don’t have burritos and enchiladas often enough. What we do have is the ingredients to make your homemade enchilada sauce. Homemade is absolutely the best — plus you don’t get the preservatives and the rest of the junk that goes into store-bought sauce. I think we should have a Mexican food week. Your recipe is just what we need.
Exactly! Enjoy, Marisa!
There is so much to like about this recipe. Easy to make. Simple ingredient list. So much healthier than anything in a jar. So much less expensive than anything you’re going to buy. All that and tasty too!!
All true, Debra!!
I can’t even tell you how excited I am about this recipe! Enchiladas are my favorite, but the canned sauces taste like, well, the can. I’m pretty sure my husband would happily eat burritos (or enchiladas) for a week, too!