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Quick Mexican Meals
by Becki Bell No doubt about it, a great Mexican meal is rarely something you can throw together on the fly after a long day at work. Most Mexican recipes include complicated, time consuming sauces, not to mention lots of chopping and ingredient juggling.
I love Mexican food, but I don't always want to spend all that time in the kitchen. So over the years I've accumulated an arsenal of tips and recipes that can help reduce your time in the kitchen, without compromising the quality of the food you are preparing. Here are some of the most useful:
- Prepare sauces ahead of time, make generous quantities, and freeze the leftovers in meal-sized containers. The sauce is usually the most time consuming part of any Mexican recipe. Fortunately, most sauces freeze quite well (some even seem to improve once they've been frozen). You can reduce the amount of time you spend in your kitchen by doubling or tripling your recipes, then storing the leftovers in your freezer. For added efficiency, put the sauces in small ziplock bags and lay flat to freeze. You can store a lot of sauces very efficiently this way, and if you store them in meal-sized quantities, defrosting in your microwave will be fast and waste-free. Just be sure to mark your bags so you remember what you have!
- Use your crockpot. Many Mexican meat dishes require stewing, and you can easily cook them ahead of time without having to worry about babysitting your saucepan. Just toss the ingredients into a crockpot first thing in the morning and cook on low until you are ready to prepare your meal that evening. Note: you may have to cut back on liquid ingredients such as water and chicken stock. Because a crockpot doesn't vent steam, you'll end up with a watery result if you use the same quantities of liquid as the original recipe calls for.
- Shop at specialty grocers or online stores that carry Mexican ingredients. There are a lot of great bottled sauces on the market, and you can eliminate a large chunk of cooking time by using a bottled sauce in lieu of something that is complicated to prepare. For the most authentic flavors, avoid mass-marketed sauces like those you can find in your local grocery store and focus on sauces made in Mexico or in the Southwest by privately owned companies. These sauces are usually made with superior quality ingredients and tend to be the most flavorful.
- Use canned beans instead of dried beans. In a pinch, substitute canned beans so you won't have to worry about soaking them overnight. Be sure to check the label before purchasing canned beans. If there are any added spices, don't buy them. You want the spices you add yourself to become the primary flavors in the recipe; you don't want to have to compete with spices that are already there.
If you haven't had time to prepare anything in advance, you don't have a crockpot, or you're out of bottled sauces, don't despair, you can still cook a quick Mexican meal using ingredients you probably have at home or can find in your local grocery store. Here are three Mexican recipes that will satisfy your craving for South-of-the-Border cuisine without demanding an entire evening of your time. Recipes:
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