New Mexico and California chilies work too. Look for LARGE dark red dried chilies **To save time, after roasting and cleaning the seeds out, lightly simmer the chilies for 20-30min in the broth. Once soft add the chilies and the broth you cooked them in to the blender and add 1/4-1/2 cup more broth to compensate for some cooking off. AllRecipes won't let me update the recipe to say this I'm sorry!! ****If you read the reviews you'll see those who stuck with the recipe as is gave it a high rating, those who tweaked it first with other options gave it a lower rating... My rule of thumb for ALL recipes is to try it how it's written first (unless I am simply SURE there is some ingredient I don't like). Once I try a recipe as written, then I will almost always tweak it the following times I make it. I don't think it's fair to change the recipe as written and then give it a poor review... Try my rule of thumb and make it 'as written' the first time before tweaking it, you will probably still tweak it to your liking, but probably in a totally different way than you expected.********
To the reviewer that had bitter sauce: that happens sometimes if the chilies get roasted too much, it only takes 30 seconds of over doing it to over roast the chilies. If you try again watch them VERY closely, they should just start to smell nice, the color really should not darken and if they look black at ALL then they are over roasted and will make a bad bitter sauce... done it too! Love, Christine
This sauce is easily the best I ever made. I'm a Texan who unfortunately lives out of state and I CRAVE a real enchilada sauce- well this is it. It's as good or better than any I ever had in Texas. The description is accurate: smoky and savory... and I might add DELICIOUS!!!!!
I followed the directions exactly and this turned out really good. I would recommend adding crushed red pepper before blending to add some heat to this as its very mild.
This is the BEST sauce we have tasted. My husband is half Mexican American and grew up eating authentic cuisine and he just raved. He is still raving this morning. I toasted my chilies in a dry cast iron skillet til they began smoking and slightly puffed. After cooling, I deseeded them and soaked them in simmering broth about 30 min. Then continued with the recipe. I only added salt at the end because broth contained salt. Served this with a side of corn with jalapenos, also from this site. That one is also 5 stars!! Thanks Christine. I have waited a long time for a recipe like this.
I tried the recipe as is and it was good but very time consuming. I decided to boil the chilies with a couple of jalapeños for about 25-30 mins. Strained only the ancho chilies. Then moved on to step 3. Included the jalapeños and left out the tomato paste and did not add the broth until it was in the sauce pan. I also used 1/2 a knorr caldo de pollo bullion cube with a cup of the water I used to boil the chilies. Slowly added that to the sauce to make sure it did not come out too watery. I only used about 1/2 of the broth. This saved a lot of time and still came out very tasty.
I LOVED this sauce...and I am Picky about my enchiladas (tend to prefer traditional sauce). I couldn't find Ancho Chiles dried so substituted dried California chiles. I burned black the first batch so put fewer in than called for (only 4). I also added more tomato paste (my can was bigger). My hubby said it was tangy (prob the extra paste) but liked it with sour creme on top. At first I thought Oh-boy a whole hour to soak! But the time flew by as I was making the enchiladas and the sauce was really quite easy. Thanks so much!!!
I screwed it up. I totally burnt the peppers while toasting them. HAHAHA. Watch the time!!!! Wah. No more peppers on hand but I really wanted the sauce so I just used a whole bunch of chili powder and a itty bit of paprika for a smoky flavor. I'm still giving it five stars. I can tell this recipe is awesome by the ingredients. The only thing I was going to omit was the oregano because I didn't want even the slightest reminder of spaghetti sauce flavor but that's a matter of personal taste. I soooo wish I didn't burn the anchos. My adjusted sauce was OK: the chilis would have brought the sauce to perfection! So thanks for putting me on the right track. Next time!
Be very careful with those chiles. I had to roast 12 in order to get the six I needed. I had to substitute a different kind of dried chile beef bouillon and water for the beef broth and I only added 1 teaspoon of salt. I don't like most red sauce because it's too salty. I used the sauce to make Spinach Enchiladas on this site. They were fabulous.
This is the real thing. Very similar to a recipe I have been using for years. You can roast the peppers in a little oil on the stove also or even in a hot dry pan. Your kitchen will smell very Mexican. I have had enchiladas in restaurants done this way but it was many years ago.
Meh. Found the chile skins made this one bitter.
