Easy Enchilada Sauce

Name: Easy Enchilada Sauce
Prep time: 3 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 18 min
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour or potato starch; ¼ cup chili powder; 2 tablespoons light tasting oil of your choice; 2 cups vegetable broth; 1 6-ounce can tomato paste; 1 teaspoon dried oregano; 1 teaspoon ground cumin; ¾ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon sugar

May 13, 2014 by Debi 55 Comments

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I’ve been making a batch of this Easy Enchilada Sauce every week lately and using it on just about everything! I have another recipe for Red Chile Sauce (enchilada Sauce) that I love.

But I don’t always feel like chopping and cooking it. That’s where this Easy Enchilada Sauce comes in. Just mix a few ingredients together, simmer for a few minutes, and voila! You have an excellent enchilada sauce!

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Use this sauce for all kinds of dishes! Besides baked enchiladas, it’s great on a breakfast burrito, a taco salad, nachos, quesadillas, Potato Skins, or Chilaquiles. Sometimes I’ll make enchilada bowls for lunch with rice, veggies, some cheese, (chicken for the husband), and top it all off with enchilada sauce. It’s a great easy lunch idea!

If you’d like the sauce to have a little more kick, add in a little cayenne pepper to heat it up.

I like to make a batch of this sauce, use some for dinner, and keep the rest in the freezer. It stores really nicely in a tightly covered container, and defrosts easily in the microwave. Then, I can just make up those enchilada lunch bowls really quickly!

Make it Gluten Free

*Oh, and I have an update to the recipe! My new blogger friend, Allison from Clean Wellness asked me about making the sauce gluten-free. I had a couple of ideas, so I headed into the kitchen to try.

Here’s my suggestion if you want this to be GF, replace the tablespoon of flour with 1 tablespoon of potato starch. If you’re not familiar with potato starch, it’s similar to corn starch. I prefer to use potato for two reasons: 1) there’s so much corn in so many things, I can eliminate it, and 2) corn starch tends to have a bit of a gritty mouth-feel; potato starch doesn’t have that.

Follow the recipe the same way. The flavor was the same in both batches; the only difference I see is that the potato starch batch got a skin on it as it cooled. No big deal, I just stirred the skin into the sauce and it dissolved. Or, you could place a piece of plastic wrap right on top of the sauce to make sure no skin forms. So, thanks to Allison for prompting me to try this!

I write on the lids of all my sauce jars with a grease pencil or a sharpie so that I know what’s inside each jar.

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