a simple real food recipe :: homemade enchilada sauce

Everyone loves enchilada night!

You will love making your own sauce – it is much more flavorful than the jarred or canned from the store. And skipping out on the crazy high fructose corn syrup and other toxic preservatives, MSG, and possible GMO’d ingredients is a huge plus.

Take advantage of double or tripling up the recipe so you can have some in the freezer to pull out on busy nights. Enchiladas actually come together quite quick and if the sauce is already made, even quicker. Play around with the seasonings to your family’s taste and make it your own!

*Come back tomorrow for my method on baking the enchiladas! UPDATE! HERE is how to bake up those enchiladas!

You’ll need:

• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 TB chili powder
• 1 TB cumin
• 1/8 tsp chipolte powder (or more if you want more heat)
• 3 tsp sunacat or organic pure cane sugar (could use honey)
• 1 – 15oz can organic tomato sauce (I get mine cheapest at Costco)
• 1 cup chicken stock or water
• Sea salt/pepper to taste (I use about 1 tsp salt and ¼ tsp pepper)

1. Saute the onion with a pinch of salt in a few TB of friendly fat (butter, coconut oil, or lard) for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the garlic and cook for a minute.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce to a low simmer for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally.
5. Puree with handheld blender or in a blender.

Kitchen Tips:

• This keeps a week in the fridge or you may freeze in a jar. This makes one recipe of my enchilada dinner – post coming tomorrow! UPDATE! HERE is how to bake up those enchiladas!
• After you make this the first time and decide on the seasonings to your taste, I would recommend just triple batching this or so to freeze up – then enchilada night will go even faster. I figure if I have a pot going to make one batch, I might as well double, triple, or quad batch it up so I only dirty the pot one time. Ha!
• Make the sauce up the night or even weekend before enchilada night. Even though the sauce comes together super quick, it is even nicer on a busy night to just dump the prepped sauce in the baking dish!

YOUR TURN!
Do you have any secrets to your enchilada sauce! Please share!

This post was shared at Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday and The Polikva Family’s Family Table Tuesday!