Hello, hola; welcome, bienvenidos; thanks and gracias for visiting! My name is Maura Hernandez and I’m the author of the popular Mexican cooking, culture and travel website, The Other Side of The Tortilla, and I’m new here to the Genius Blog. I’m here to help you navigate adding a little sabor to your kitchen!
I’ve been blogging on The Tortilla since 2009 when I decided to publicly document my journey of writing down my husband’s family recipes and using cookbooks to fill in the gaps where I needed to learn about techniques or specific ingredients. Oftentimes in families, recipes are only passed on orally from generation to generation, so it was my mission to make sure that none of our family recipes fell through the cracks. After all, one day I’ll want to teach my own children to carry on the tradition of making the dishes that are so dear to us. It’s taken a lot of experimenting, but we’ve come a long way.
First, a small confession: my kitchen isn’t Mexican 100 percent of the time, and I know yours isn’t either. So while I’m here to share Mexican recipes and tips to add Latin flair to your cooking, I know that realistically (especially if you have kids who are picky eaters) the best way to start incorporating Mexican cuisine in your home if it’s unfamiliar territory is little by little with small touches that build a comfort level.
That said, I’m going to share with you a very simple but tasty recipe for chipotle mayonnaise. Yes, it comes bottled at the store if you know where to buy it, but I’m big on learning how to make even the simplest things that I could conveniently buy at the store. But if I lived in a city that didn’t have a Mexican grocer, I’d have to learn to make it from scratch anyhow if I wanted it, right? And honestly, I prefer the taste of homemade to store-bought any day of the week. While the modern miracle of appliances are key to not spending too much time in the kitchen and experimenting with new cuisines and flavors, it’s important to still know how to make things from scratch.
So let’s get down to business, shall we? Some people are afraid of all chili peppers, thinking they’re all too hot for their taste buds no matter what; but the truth is that it’s all about balance. Chipotle peppers are simply smoked red jalapeños that have been cured and preserved with vinegar, tomato sauce or paste, ancho chiles and spices.
The beauty of this recipe is that you can easily adjust it to your taste. Want just a touch of chipotle? No problem. Love your mayo super spicy? We can do it that way, too. Having guests over with a varying range of tolerance for spicy foods? You can easily and quickly make a big batch that’s less spicy and then divide it in half and add more chipotle to half of the mayo!
If you can’t find chipotles en abodo in your regular grocery store and don’t have any ethnic markets that carry Hispanic foods, you can always order them online from places such as MexGrocer.
You can put chipotle mayo on anything from a traditional Mexican torta (a sandwich on a special roll called a bolillo or telera) to a regular old BLT (like the one pictured here) to give it a little kick. Be creative!
What you’ll need:
- Your choice of mayonnaise (I prefer low-fat)
- A small can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (you can usually find these in the ethnic or canned food sections of your grocery store)
- 1 fresh lime
- A little pinch of kosher salt
As a general rule, I start with a quarter cup of mayo, a few squeezes of fresh lime juice, a little pinch of kosher salt and one and a half to two chipotle peppers with a little spoonful of the adobo sauce from the can. If it’s too spicy for you, just add a little more mayo. If it’s not spicy enough, add more chile with a little squeeze of lime juice.
There are three ways you can mix it all together:
- A food processor
- A hand blender
- Chop the chile very finely and mix in by hand
I typically will blend the chipotles, salt and lime juice together first in a food processor or blender, but there’s no wrong way to do it. In the end, you just want to make sure that the mayo is blended smoothly with the chile mixture. There shouldn’t be any chunks of chile in it, and the mayo should be a reddish-orange, speckled hue.
That’s it! Simple, right? If you have any questions, please feel free to leave comments here for me on the Genius Blog or on my site. I look forward to sharing more tips here with you every week!
My husband loves mayonnaise!! I think this would be a very nice way to give a little kick to a burger!
Thanks for sharing! =)
What an easy and tasty way to add flavor to any sandwich or to use as a dip!
Chipiotle has become very popular in the U.S. and there´s a good reason why: ¡es delicioso!
Happy to be following you here, as well!
I LOVE Maura’s blog The Other Side of The Tortilla and am so happy to see her here on Kenmore. I can’t wait to try out this delicious Chipolte Mayo! MORE PLEASE!!!
Great to see you writing here, Maura! This recipe is so simple and delicious. I’m definitely going to try it. I bet you could make an interesting chicken salad with it.
I love this post so much I can’t even tell you. I’m definitely making this mayo. Thanks for the recipe!
My husband loves chipotle and I don’t. This one looks so easy and quick. Love your ideas Maura!!
This sounds so yummy! I’m definitely going to try mixing up a mayo like this for my next BLT!
I’m a big cheerleader of the chipotle chile pepper. I’ve actually had a sandwich with chipotle mayo recently at a little cafe and loved it. Glad to know how to make it here at home! Thanks for this great post.
I want to try this recipe with vegan mayo. I can already see myself using it for everything. Sounds delicious!
I made this and never want plain/regular mayonnaise again. I love chiles en adobo and this gives me a new way to enjoy them. YUM!
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Thanks, Maybelline! Putting it on a burger sounds like a great idea! Let me know how your husband likes it. I’m going to try it out too.
Ana, I never even thought to use it as a dip but that’s a great idea! Thanks for following along here as well as on The Other Side of The Tortilla
Maya, thanks so much for leaving a comment. So nice to see you checking out what’s going on here as well and I appreciate it! I’m open to suggestions of things you want to see here, so feel free to suggest away and I can shift some things around to add anything you or anyone else wants to know about
Maria, thanks for checking out the genius blog! I love chicken salad and am totally going to give it a go making chipotle chicken salad. Will let you know how it turns out!
Yvonne, so glad I could make you happy with my first post here! Let me know any creative ways you end up using the recipe. It’s always neat to see how others incorporate my recipes in their own kitchens.
Haha, Dariela, in that case, then when you’re making it (or you show him this post so he can make it himself!), he can be the taste tester to decide whether it needs more or less chipotle.
It stores well in the fridge, too. I like to make it in small batches and store it in an airtight container so it stays fresh longer.
Hi Mariana, I love chipotles and I love an old fashioned BLT on Texas toast, so I like to say there’s no better way to improve upon a classic BLT than adding a little of the smokiness from chipotle in the form of a fancy mayo
Thanks for the comment. I love your blog and will stop by there later to comment some more. I’m glad to see someone else loves chipotle mayo as much as I do!
And who would have thought it was so easy, right?
Ericka, I’d love if you let me know how this turns out with vegan mayo. I’ve never tried that before but I have a number of friends who are vegans and vegetarians who I’m sure would love to know that my recipe works well with vegan mayo, too!
Tracy, thanks for the awesome compliment! After eating chipotle mayo, going back to the plain kind can be such a bummer, haha. I’m glad I could help give you a new way to enjoy something you already liked, but in a different way.
You continue to inspire me!
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Carly, thanks for the comment. I hope that when you move back to Chicago in a few months, we can spend some time together in the kitchen!
So while I’m here to share Mexican recipes and tips to add Latin flair to your cooking, I know that realistically (especially if you have kids who are picky eaters) the best way to start incorporating Mexican cuisine in your home if it’s unfamiliar territory is little by little with small touches that build a comfort level.