Chilaquiles
Serves 1 Difficulty 3/5 Ingredients 11 Steps 9
The following recipe is quite common in most of Mexico as a breakfast item, due to the addition of eggs, but is also eaten throughout the day including during dinner time. The additional recipe for a salsa de chile de árbol will be used as the primary sauce.
Ingredients
Salsa de chile de árbol
- 1 cup tomatillos, dehusked
- 4–6 dried chiles de árbol, roasted
- 1 clove garlic
- ½ cup water
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
Chilaquiles
- Vegetable oil (enough to cover the tortillas to deep-fry them)
- 2 day-old corn tortillas, cut into strips then squares
- 1 standard egg
- ¼ white onion, diced
- Crumbled or shredded cheese
Steps
Salsa de chile de árbol
- Wrap tomatillos in heavy duty aluminum foil. Roast on comal (cast iron skillet) over stovetop.
- After roasting approximately 15 to 20 minutes, remove from heat. Reserve.
- Roast dried chilies and garlic directly on comal. Chilies take under a minute; garlic takes longer.
- Combine roasted tomatillos, chilies, garlic, water, salt and pepper in blender. Liquefy a few minutes until smooth with no large pieces. Extra salsa works as condiment.
Chilaquiles
- Heat enough vegetable oil in frying pan to deep fry tortillas, hot enough that tortilla pieces fry rapidly when dropped in.
- Fry tortillas until chestnut brown, not too dark or burnt. Drain most of the oil, leaving enough to fry remaining ingredients.
- Crack egg into fried tortillas. Scramble, folding tortilla strips into egg. Season with salt and pepper if desired. Remove from pan. Rest on plate.
- Add some of the removed oil back to pan. Heat. Add diced onion. Soften a few minutes. Add salsa de chile de árbol. Sauté 1–2 minutes. Dilute with a little water if too thick.
- Return fried tortilla and egg mixture to pan. Cook about 1 minute, enough for tortillas to soak up some sauce. Add cheese before plating.
Notes from the original
- In Mexico, very rarely is this dish made with tortilla chips but rather day-old tortillas that have stiffened. If you don't have day-old tortillas you can leave out fresh tortillas until they are stiff to get the right texture.
- The chiles are very hot; adjust to taste.
- For the cheese, you can use anything that melts well such as Monterey Jack or Manchego
- The recipe for the chili sauce used in this recipe is of course a red sauce. If you prefer a green sauce, simply substitute the chiles de árbol with fresh jalapeño chilies that you can also roast in the same way. After you have roasted the chilies on the comal and thoroughly burnt the skins, place the chilies in a plastic bag with a small amount of water so as to allow them to steam. After about 5 minutes, remove the jalapeños from the bag and simply rub the skin off of them. Continue to make the sauce as indicated above.
- This dish can be made with strips of chicken in addition to or as a replacement for the egg. In Mexico chilaquiles are often served throughout the day and as such the addition of chicken strips will complement it as a dinner item. Using all the same ingredients just add some warmed and shredded chicken meat during the last step before you add the cheese. Oftentimes, my mother would add a little bit of Mexican cream (somewhat like sour cream but more akin to creme fraiche) over the top of the chilaquiles right before we enjoyed them on our serving plate as a way to tone down the spicy heat of the dish.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Chilaquiles” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-06-17, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.