Inside A Mexican Pantry: The Ultimate Guide

What ingredients make a well-stocked Mexican Pantry?

Dried chiles, tomatillos, masa harina, and other foods are essential and unique to Mexican and other Latin cuisines, but they need not be intimidating. Keep reading for everything you need to know about making your kitchen a mecca for great Mexican cooking. Let’s take the mystery out of the Mexican pantry!

What You Don’t Always Find In A Mexican Pantry

Mexican gastronomy is extraordinarily vast and differs greatly from region to region. Clearly we aren’t going to cover every ingredient. There are lots of special foods that are used infrequently for celebratory meals and during the holidays. Ingredients like sugarcane, tejocotes, and the laundry list of essentials that make up long-simmering mole sauces are not necessarily essential and ones we will save for another post.

There is also a world of ingredients not readily available to us here in the United States or in most places outside of Mexico. Even living in Southern California, a few hours from the border, I have a hard time getting my hands on things like avocado leaves and Hoja Santa.

These specialty or hard-to-find ingredients are not going to be the focus here. They don’t need to be. The variety of grains, beans, produce, and spices available in our grocery stores is more than enough to make an endless number of homemade easy Mexican dishes.

What You DO Always Find In a Mexican Pantry

Now let’s discuss what is essential, essential. What items you MUST have to make Mexican food truly Mexican. There are a few ingredients that are unique and special to Mexican cooking and define the minimal Mexican pantry. Here are my top 7:

1. Tortillas: corn or flour, whichever you prefer.
2. Limes
3. Cilantro
4. Chiles: fresh or dried, canned or pickled or all of the above
5. Avocados
6. Beans
7. Tomatillos

So Let’s Dive In!

This is a comprehensive list of what you need to make easy Mexican recipes happen regularly in your kitchen and don’t worry I’ll link to plenty of recipe inspiration along the way.

I think the best way to do this is to organize them by how they should be stored. Here’s how we’ll break it down.

• From The Fridge
• In The Spice Rack
• On Your Pantry Shelf
• On The Counter
• In The Freezer

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From The Fridge

Fresh Chiles

Unlike dried chiles, the fresh variety need to be refrigerated. I always have at least one type of fresh chile in the crisper. The highest quality, least expensive chiles are found at your local Latin Market but many varieties can be found at any supermarket. Fresh chiles last up to a week, sometimes longer in the refrigerator. Remember you can always remove the seeds of a fresh chile to make them less spicy. Some of my favorites, listed from least spicy to most spicy are:

• Poblanos
• Serranos
• Jalapeños
• Habaneros

Favorite Fresh Chile Recipes

• Charred Poblano Corn Crepes
• Blistered Sweet Potatoes with Serranos and Lime
• Spicy Raspberry Jalapeño Margarita

Fresh Herbs

It’s hard to imagine Mexican food without the distinctive flavor of cilantro or the bright hint of mint. Here are the fresh herbs we can’t live without:

• Cilantro
• Mint
• Oregano {Preferably Mexican Oregano}
• Thyme

Tomatillos

Tomatillos are the firm, green, tart tomato-looking fruit wrapped in the papery husks. They are the featured ingredient in Salsa Verde and many other easy Mexican recipes. They are widely available in most grocery stores but are least expensive at your local Latin Market where you also might find a miniature purple version as well.

Tomatillo Recipes

• Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa
• Instant Pot Pork Chili Verde with Cheese
• Chicken Mole Verde

Tortillas

I’m not sure there is a more cultural-defining ingredient than the tortilla. No Mexican pantry would be complete without them. Whether you prefer corn or flour or both they are best kept refrigerated. Tightly sealed, tortillas last a couple of weeks in the refrigerator.

What You Can Do With Stale Tortillas

• Homemade tortilla chips
• Green Chilaquiles with Fried Eggs

Mexican Cheese

There is a whole world of Mexican cheeses to explore. From super melty Queso Oaxaca to dry, sharp Cotija they may all look very similar but are unique and used to make their own statement in a variety of Mexican recipes. Mexican cheese is mostly used to accent different recipes instead of eaten out of hand, but that’s not to say a Mexican cheeseboard is not a good idea. Here are a few I like to have in the fridge:

• Queso Oaxaca
• Queso Fresco
• Cotija Cheese
• Panela Cheese

Chorizo

Mexican Chorizo is very different from cured Spanish Chorizo that can be kept at room temperature. Mexican chorizo is an uncooked sausage made from either beef or pork, is highly seasoned and perfectly suited for sautéing with cubes of potatoes or mixed into fluffy scrambled eggs.

The best chorizo is found in the butcher shops of Latin markets. The highly-processed, pre-packaged stuff found in larger supermarkets pales in comparison.

In the Spice Rack

Spices

The Mexican pantry is nothing if not full of spice. Many spices are native to Mexico, like vanilla beans, and many, like cumin, came during the spice trades in the mid 1500’s and are now grown in Mexico. Several I commonly call for in my recipes and always have on hand are:

• Cumin (both ground and seed)
• Ground coriander
• Ground chili powders (cayenne, arbol, and chipotle)
• Whole cloves
• Cinnamon
• Vanilla (extract and beans)

Dried Herbs

Many fresh herbs commonly used in Mexican recipes like cilantro are widely available all over the country but several like epazote can only be found dried if at all. Here are the dried herbs I keep stocked in my shelf to make moles, meat dishes, and simple salsas.

• Bay leaves
• Dried oregano (preferably Mexican oregano)
• Epazote
• Thyme

On Your Pantry Shelf

Dried Chiles

You may not use dried chiles all the time, but it is a good idea to have a bag or two hanging out in the pantry. Unopened they last a good six months or more and add complexity to salsas and many other dishes. Your local Latin Market will have a wider selection of dried chiles but many supermarket chains carry at least one or two kinds. You can substitute one for another but keep in mind some are spicier than others.

My favorites from least spicy to spiciest are:

• Guajillo Chiles
• Ancho Chiles
• New Mexico Chiles
• Chipotle Chiles
• Arbol Chiles

Hominy

Hominy is dried field corn that is sold dried or canned. In the United States we grind dry hominy into grits but in Mexico, they soak the dry hominy in a calcium hydroxide aka slaked lime (the mineral, not the fruit) mixture to make it tender enough to eat whole.

Experiment with cooking your own dried hominy! Just be sure to buy prepared hominy (hominy that has already been soaked, but not cooked). Prepared hominy simply needs to be boiled until tender similar to dry beans.

If it is not labeled as “prepared” you will need to soak it yourself in calcium hydroxide, which can also be found at local Latin markets. You can bypass all of this by purchasing canned hominy instead.

Chipotles In Adobo Sauce

One thing everyone can agree upon is the smoky allure of chipotle peppers in adobo. They have spice, they have smoke, a touch of vinegar, basically elevating every Mexican food recipe they touch. Plus, bonus: they come in a convenient can, ready to be used with no soaking necessary!

Check out which brands I love the best.

Tamarind

Pods of papery-skinned tamarind pods are a common site at most Latin markets and are used to give a puckering sour to, mostly drinks. Agua Fresca and Margaritas are my favorite.

Substitute: If you can’t find the whole pods, look for tamarind paste sold by the block or jar or tamarind concentrate.

Masa

Masa is the life blood of Mexican cooking. The word masa can mean many things and technically means “dough”. As far as your pantries are concerned masa refers to:

• Masa Harina: This is corn flour used to make any number of Mexican recipes from tortillas, tamales, gorditas, and sopes, just to name a few.
• Fresh Masa: This is masa made from soaked (but not cooked) hominy (see above) that is then ground with water for a ready-to-use dough. You can buy bags of fresh masa at your local Latin Market.

Achiote Paste

If you’ve ever made Cochinita Pibil or other Mexican recipes from the Yucatan you’ve probably used this bright red recado, or blend of different spices. The vibrant color and tart flavor comes from achiote or annatto seeds. Bricks of Achiote paste can be found with the other Latin ingredients in most large supermarkets .

Corn Husks

The essential wrappers for tamales come from the large ears of field corn—which ironically, is used to make the tamales themselves. You can substitute banana leaves, but those are typically harder to find than corn husks. They need to be soaked in hot water until soft and pliable before use.

Jamaica {Hibiscus Flowers}

Dried Jamaica flowers are ironically not flowers at all but the outer covering that encloses the hibiscus petals before it blooms. Their astringent, floral flavor is most popular in drinks like Agua de Jamaica, but can also be rehydrated and eaten as is in tacos, quesadillas, or other fillings. They are incredibly pricey everywhere but the Latin Market which sells overflowing bins of them for next to nothing.

10 Recipes Using Jamaica Flowers

Beans

Aside from corn there is no other ingredient so emblematic of Mexican cooking. They are a permanent fixture at nearly every meal and sometimes play the leading role for budget-friendly, nutritious vegetarian dinners. Currently there are 40,000 varieties of beans on record, but a few maintain top billing in Mexican recipes. The easiest to find here in the US are:

• Pinto Beans
• Black Beans
• Peruano Beans

Piloncillo

These cone or rectangular-shaped blocks of raw, unrefined sugar are the sweetener in many traditional Mexican desserts and an essential in the Mexican pantry for everything from sweets to drinks.

They are very hard and even harder to cut into pieces. Therefore, if you can find the smaller piloncillo cones, even better. I like to dissolve them in whatever liquid is going into the dish rather than try to cut them with a knife.

You can substitute dark brown sugar for piloncillo. They are not exactly the same, but they both have a strong molasses flavor.

On The Counter

Onions

By far the most common aromatic used in practically all dishes is the ubiquitous onion.

Mexican food recipes tend to use onions a bit differently than other cuisines. Instead of being sautéed in oil or butter, they are commonly charred in a hot, dry skillet until the skins are blackened then blended into sauces. Finely chopped raw onions are also often used as a garnish for soups and tacos. The most common varieties used are:

• White Onions
• Red Onions
• Mexican Green Onions (like a traditional scallion with a much larger white bulb)
• Scallions

Jicama

This beet-shaped, brown root vegetable is best peeled and eaten raw with little more than a squeeze of lime and possibly a sprinkle of chili powder. They can stay in the fruit bowl on the counter for up to a week or 2-3 weeks in the refrigerator.

Jicama also makes the perfect healthy popsicle.

Avocado

Originating in Central Mexico, the avocado has reached prized status in the Mexican pantry for its nutrient-dense, creamy flesh. There are many varieties but the Hass is most common. Barely ripe avocados can last at room temperature on the counter for 3-4 days depending on ripeness. Once ripe, they will keep a few more days in the refrigerator. A piece of plastic wrap pressed directly on the flesh of a cut avocado will keep it from browning. This is equally true for a bowl of guacamole.

A Few Unconventional Ways To Use Avocados

• Avocado Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Avocado Pickles
• Avocado Deviled Eggs with Dukkah
• Creamy Avocado Dressing

Limes

Although many citrus fruits like oranges, grapefruits, and bitter oranges abound in Mexican food recipes, the queen of Mexican citrus is the lime. Their unmistakable floral tartness is the key ingredient to everything from margaritas to pico de gallo. A squeeze of lime is all the garnish you need for just about any Mexican dish. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to find the miniature key limes in Latin markets but the traditional larger lime is perfect for juicing.

Limes keep well on the counter at room temperature for up to 2 weeks. If you don’t think you will use them in time, keep them refrigerated.

In The Freezer

Nuts and Seeds

Many types of nuts and seeds are essential in the Mexican pantry to make red mole sauce, salsas like Salsa de Cacahuate, and desserts. Because the oils in nuts and seeds can go rancid quickly its best to keep them in the freezer where they will stay fresh for at least 6 months. The most commonly used varieties in Mexican dishes are:

• Pumpkin Seeds {Pepitas}
• White Sesame Seeds
• Pecans
• Walnuts
• Peanuts

Let’s Get Cooking!

So now what? You have all the ingredients, here are a few iconic dishes to start with to get to know Mexican food better:

• Borracho Beans— A classic Mexican bean recipe made with pinto beans, aromatics, spices, and beer.
• Caldo de Pollo—A classic Mexican chicken soup made with big hunks of vegetables and fresh herbs.
• Shredded Beef Tacos—A great starter taco topped with mango-citrus salsa
• Pork Carnitas—Slow cooked pork that is lightly fried at the end to give it crispy edges.

What’s Your Favorite Mexican Ingredient?

What are the most important Mexican pantry staples you can’t live without? Leave me a comment below! Or better yet, snap a pic of your pantry and post it to Instagram. Don’t forget to tag @holajalapeno and #holajalapeno.

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Top Photo by Lauren Newman