Enchilada Sauce

Old El Paso Enchilada sauce on the left, homemade on the right

Old El Paso Enchilada sauce on the left, homemade on the right

This is my third post in a row centered on sauce of some kind, but at least this post has nothing to do with ice cream!  I have been so hungry for good mexican food lately so, as Mexican restaurants seem to be few and far between in Hawaii, I decided to make enchiladas the other night.  I’ve been making my own enchilada sauce for a few years now, inspired by a recipe on cookinglight.com, and I decided to make one small pan of enchiladas with my sauce and one with Old El Paso mild enchilada sauce.  I have to note here that I was not going for authenticity in my recipe or in this comparison.  I wanted a homemade sauce that was comparable to canned in texture and flavor, but made with fresher ingredients, so I wasn’t trying to develop something that was necessarily authentically Mexican.   Here is the enchilada sauce I make, a combination of the Cooking Light recipe and others:

Red Enchilada Sauce

Makes about 3 cups (enough for 2 9X13 inch pans of enchiladas)

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon canola oil

1/2 a medium onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 cup chicken broth

1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes

2 Tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1.  Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat.  Once oil is hot, add the diced onion and garlic and cook until onion is softened, about 5 minutes.

2.  Add the chicken broth to the pan and simmer until broth is reduced by half and onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until well combined.

3.  Simmer on low heat, stirring occasionally, for about half an hour so that the sauce thickens a little bit.  You can use the sauce immediately or keep it refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.  It also freezes very well and you can keep it in the freezer for a couple of months!

The homemade sauce is not difficult to make but it does take quite a while to chop and saute the vegetables and simmer the tomato mixture.  The homemade and canned sauces looked very different in color and consistency so I was surprised that, once they were used in an enchilada casserole, the results of the taste test were inconclusive.  We only had three tasters for this comparison and two of us agreed that the homemade sauce did taste more flavorful than the canned.  However, neither of us were sure that this flavor difference justified the extra hour it takes to make homemade sauce.  Once the sauce is poured over enchiladas with their own seasonings and topped with a generous helping of cheese, the other flavors really overwhelm the sauce anyway.  The price difference might be enough to sway the frugal among us as the homemade version cost less than half the price of the canned.  The prices below are based on 1 cup of sauce, the amount in one small can of enchilada sauce.

Bottom Line: Homemade enchilada sauce is cheaper and more flavorful than canned, but it may not be worth the extra 45 minutes in the kitchen.  It might be a good  compromise to make a big batch of homemade sauce and freeze some for later use.

Homemade Enchilada Sauce                                               Old El Paso Enchilada Sauce

Cost:  75 Cents                                                                                    Cost:  $2.00

Time:  45 minutes                                                                              Time:  none