Homemade Enchilada Sauce (Quick & Easy!)
Skip the can because this enchilada sauce recipe is so easy and ready in 15 minutes! It uses mostly pantry ingredients and tastes better than anything you’ll buy at the store. It’s rich, smooth, customizable, and perfect for enchiladas, tacos, burritos, and more. Once you try it, you’ll never go back to store-bought enchilada sauce.
Why This Recipe Works
This homemade enchilada sauce checks all the boxes: it’s fast, flavorful, flexible, and made with simple ingredients you probably already have on hand.
- Ready in 15 minutes. A quick roux thickens the sauce beautifully while the tomato and spices simmer into a rich, smooth finish – no long cook time required.
- Big flavor, minimal effort. Blooming the seasoning in butter and oil unlocks deeper flavor than simply stirring spices into liquid.
- Perfect texture. The sauce is thick enough to cling to tortillas and fillings, but still pourable and silky.
- Customizable heat. Using a seasoning blend lets you easily control how mild or spicy your sauce turns out.
Once you make it from scratch, it’s hard to go back to the canned version.
Ingredients
- Unsalted butter and vegetable oil: I add some butter instead of just oil, giving the sauce a touch of richness and buttery flavor. It’s not traditional, but it’s delicious.
- Taco seasoning: Here, you get to choose your own adventure. Basic taco seasoning works great, but I’ve also made this recipe with chili seasoning mix and fajita seasoning. Using a spice mix makes it easy to adjust the heat level so the sauce is as spicy as you like it.
- All-purpose flour: This helps thicken the sauce so it’s not too thin.
- Chickenbroth: I like the flavor that chickenbroth adds, but you can also use vegetable broth.
- Canned tomato sauce
- Kosher salt
How to Make Make It
- Heat vegetable oil and butter together in a saucepan. Once the butter has melted, add the chili seasoning and stir to combine. Adding the spices at this point will infuse the oil so your sauce has tons of flavor.
- Add the flour and stir. Cook the mixture for a minute or so.
- Add the tomato sauce and chicken stock and stir. Simmer the sauce for 5 to 10 minutes or until it’s thickened.
Tips for the Best Enchilada Sauce
- Bloom the spices in the fat. Heating the seasoning in the butter and oil first releases maximum flavor.
- Use a seasoning blend, not chili powder. Taco, chili, or fajita seasoning gives much better complexity.
- Adjust thickness easily. If the sauce thickens too much in the fridge, just thin it with broth or water when reheating.
- Control the heat. Use mild, medium, or hot seasoning depending on your spice tolerance.
- Storage it for later. Keep it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for three to four days or freeze it for three months.
Recipes with Enchilada Sauce
Easy Enchilada Sauce
This enchilada sauce recipe is quick, easy, and delicious! You can easily double or triple it and freeze the sauce to have on hand for enchiladas, burritos, and tacos. You only need a few simple ingredients to make it!
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Servings: 8 servings
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 3 tablespoons chili seasoning or taco seasoning not chili powder – see note
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup chicken broth see note
- 1 (8-oz) can tomato sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Heat the butter and oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter is melted add the chili seasoning and stir to combine.
- Add the flour and stir to combine. Cook the mixture for about a minute stirring frequently. Add the broth, tomato sauce, and salt. Stir to combine. Simmer the sauce for five to ten minutes or until it’s thickened.
- Store the enchilada sauce in an airtight container. It will keep in the refridgerator for up to three to four days. Or freeze the sauce for up to 3 months.
Notes
Be sure to use a chili or taco seasoning blend, a combination of different spices, instead of just plain chili powder. You can also use fajita seasoning.
I like chicken stock, but you can use vegetable broth or water. Depending on what you use, you may need to adjust the amount of salt in the recipe.
The sauce may thicken in the refrigerator, so you may need to thin it with stock or water when you reheat it.
Recipe adapted from Dinner, then Dessert
Nutrition Estimate
Serving: 0.25cup (approximately) | Calories: 83kcal | Carbohydrates: 5.4g | Protein: 1.2g | Fat: 6.7g | Saturated Fat: 4.6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1.6g | Cholesterol: 8.3mg | Sodium: 309.1mg | Fiber: 0.8g | Sugar: 1.5g
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More Easy Mexican Sauces
Want to join me in saying goodbye to store-bought enchilada sauce? I hope you give this easy recipe a try!
Happy cooking,
Post updated from the archives. It was first published in September 2019.
I made this sauce vegan, only using vegan margarine and vegetable stock (carrot, celery). It was so delicious poured over enchiladas filled with black beans. Was really nice
Thanks for sharing your adjustments!
So easy & made my leftover turkey enchiladas the best I’ve ever made (general consensus)!
I added a little fajita season to the taco seasoning, it gave it a little more of a zip and made it a little more spicy!!
I’m so happy you like it! Love that you added fajita seasoning – sounds great 🙂 Thank you so much for the rating!
This sauce. Is super easy and SUPER yummy. Thank you so much for sharing!
So glad you liked it!
I realized I didn’t have canned enchilada sauce, so I looked up enchilada sauce and found your recipe. It was so easy and so delicious! I make the easy carne sauce with enchilada sauce and no bean canned chili, then stuff the tortillas with cheese, and add sauce, cheese, and chopped onions to the top. OMG! Thanks for the great recipe…no need to buy premade sauce, again!
American but living in Toronto for 20 years now, not common to find enchilada sauce in a can here. Wanted to make a recipe my cousins shared with me that called for canned sauce. Just made this and so excited to put it all together tomorrow night. So easy and tasty!! THANK YOU
You really should update your recipe to say taco seasoning instead of chili seasoning. I did not see your note until I was done cooking.
Thanks for the feedback! I updated the recipe card to make this less confusing 🙂
I use this recipe all the time! I always have the main components in my pantry, so prep is easy and fast. Delicious and not too spicy.
Thanks for letting me know! So glad you love the recipe 🙂
Simple and delicious — two words in my wheelhouse when it comes to making any kind of sauce. Thank you!
So easy to do. And it turned out great. So nice to be able to do this on the quick, rather than have to worry about having this in our pantry. Thanks for posting.
I’m glad you liked it!
Delicious! I used taco seasoning. I was hesitant at first about the flour bc I didn’t want it too thick, but it came out just right! Thanks!
Hey, I’m just a guy who was trying to make some stuffed Poblanos. I’ve smoked a few fish and cooked on the barbecue, but I don’t do it right when following a recipe. I usually just start in before I know if I have all the ingredients, and sure enough when I hollered to my wife: “Do you have any enchilada sauce,” she said “No.” She said to look up what was in enchilada sauce, and that’s when I luckily discovered your life saving recipe … well maybe not life saving, but it saved the day! It was easy to follow and easy to make ( I just learned to make a roux a couple of weeks ago). It turned out great! Thanks for the great recipe!
So glad you liked it!