This taco sauce recipe comes together quickly and has amazing flavor! It’s like your favorite jarred version…but better.
Looking for a killer sauce that takes no time at all? Try this easy Taco Sauce recipe! Why make it homemade when you can easily buy it from the store? Two things: it tastes amazing (yep!) and you know exactly what’s in it. No preservatives or weird ingredients, here! Here we’ll show you how to make a killer taco sauce that takes just 5 minutes to simmer on the stove. It’s our favorite for throwing together quick dinners, like our black bean tacos or refried bean tacos.
Taco sauce, aka “salsa taquera” in Spanish, is a blended red sauce made of tomatoes and peppers used on tacos. Versions of it are served at Mexican taquerias, and the Americanized version stars at Taco Bell and in Tex Mex food: so it’s a Mexican-inspired food that spans cuisines. It’s tangy, a little spicy, and utterly delicious.
Homemade taco sauce is simple to whip up with mostly pantry ingredients. The only thing you might not have on hand is canned tomato sauce, depending on what you keep on hand. Here’s what you’ll need:
There’s really nothing to making taco sauce: simply add the ingredients and heat for just 5 minutes. Here are a few notes on the process:
This taco sauce recipe uses Mexican hot sauce to bring in some heat and chili pepper flavor. Our favorite hot sauce is Cholula, the popular brand of Mexican hot sauce. You can customize the recipe to your needs: the recipe below provides a range from mild to medium. Of course, you can leave it out if you like!
We taste tested this homemade taco sauce against a bottle of Ortega brand, and it had a very similar flavor! In fact, we liked it a little better. The ingredients we used here helped it to come together into an intensely tangy, lightly spicy red sauce.
In some of our tests with tomato paste, it came out too gummy or intensely tomato-y. Tomato sauce is the way to to! Remember that cans of tomato sauce are labeled with those words: it’s not the same as marinara or spaghetti sauce.
Easy Taco Sauce (Best Flavor!)
This taco sauce recipe comes together quickly and has amazing flavor! It’s like your favorite jarred version…but better.
Prep: 2min
Total: 18min
Yield: 3
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup tomato sauce (small batch; or double for 1 1/2 cups sauce!)*
- 1 cup water
- 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1 (mild) to 2 (medium) teaspoons hot sauce
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
Instruction:
- In a medium saucepan, whisk together tomato sauce, water, 2 tablespoons white vinegar, hot sauce, sugar, salt, garlic powder, onion powder and cumin. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low or medium low. Simmer where the sauce is steadily bubbling for 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, stir the cornstarch into 1 tablespoon water in a small bowl until dissolved. Add the cornstarch slurry to the taco sauce and cook for an additional 1 minute, stirring constantly, until the sauce becomes thick and glossy. Remove from the heat and stir in the additional 1 teaspoon vinegar. Store refrigerated; it will thicken even more as it cools.
Homemade Taco Sauce/ How to make taco sauce
FAQ
What is taco sauce made of?
What is a substitute for taco sauce?
- 1 – Salsa.
- 2 – Pico de Gallo.
- 3 – Chimichurri Sauce.
- 4 – Romesco Sauce.
- 5 – Red Enchilada Sauce.
What is best taco sauce?
What is in Irish taco sauce?
