Douse your eggs with the fiery Mexican condiment or dot it atop tacos and smash avocado. Spice to your heart’s content.
Salsamacha is a condiment Chamaeleon . The liquefied chilli oil that hails from Veracruz , Mexico is serious on just about anything : yolky eggs and nail avocado , swirled into mushroom risotto ( trust me , or rather , trustField Bar and Bottle Shopin Tacoma , Washington on this ) , or drizzle over tacos . The possibilities are nearly endless .
TheNew York Timesdesignatedsalsa macha the MVP of condiments in 2020 , but the vermillion sauce has since grown in ubiquity . The long - time taqueria staple fiber is now a various pantry must - have .
According toTexas Monthlytaco editor program José Ralat , salsa macha ’s descent lie in Orizaba , Veracruz — a major port city which would have see imports from the East . You could trace connections to its spicy cousin , theAsian chili crisp . Whatever its diachronic journeying , salsa macha is here now , with tweaked adaptation popping up everywhere .
Photo courtesy of Flamingo Estate
You ’ll rule the igneous condiment at some of thebest Mexican restaurantsin the country . It dwells atop a line sausage taco at Chicago ’s Taqueria Chingon . In Dallas , Jalisco Norte ’s Beef Suadero dollops the peppery salsa on brisket and avocado . At Tuetano Taqueria in San Diego , snag a larder - quick jar of Priscilla Curiel ’s salsa macha . El Naranjo , helmed by chef Iliana de la Vega who take away home a2022 James Beard Awardfor Best Chef Texas , makes a stellar one , too .
The basic normal for salsa macha — Chile , nuts , seeds , and oil — is already a dreamy combo . But it ’s comfortable to thumb on , jar it up , and put it on the ledge . Or , even better , buy pantry commodity directly from the source .
Our Favorite Salsa Machas
Compañera
Like others in the Mexican diaspora , the founders ofCompañerahad worry sourcing a jar of their beloved salsa macha . Rather than bring it back to Chicago after misstep to Mexico , they made their own . Compañera ’s version has a slenderly chunkier texture due to the plus of sunflower , sesame , and pumpkin seed alongside the common peanut .
Masienda
Better known , perhaps , for its heirloom masa , Masienda ’s charge to share the culinary and ethnical diversity of Mexican food for thought does n’t stop at tortillas and Tamale . ItsPura Salsa Machaline is a aggregation of three fun wind on the spicy topping . There ’s one with chipotle , morita , and pasilla chiles with the tot kick of coffee that can place upright up to hearty substance and robust dishes . Another blends guajillo , cherry tree , and Theobroma cacao pen nib to make a live - angelic - smoky condiment . hire cue stick from its Asian chili crisp sibling , the chile arbol , nori , and sesame Pura Macha go all in on umami . It even has some Szechuan pepper for shudder .
Xilli
Nacxi Gaxiola , a multi - hyphenate chef , research worker , and culinary advisor , has buoy up Mexican cuisine for over two decades . WithXilli(which is the original Nahuatl full term for “ chile ” ) , his pantry staples — salsas , moles , escabeches , adobos — help bring his country ’s culinary heritage into our own kitchen . His chipotle - found salsa macha with toasted peanuts has a smoky , inscrutable flavor that will intoxicate any dish antenna .
Flamingo Estate
Smoked chipotle peppercorn and red jalapeños ( that is , greenish jalapeño that ’s lead to mature on the vine ) dominateFlamingo Estate ’s salsa macha . Flamingo Estate sources its chipotle from Veracruz . In the city of Misantla , Gabino and Minerva Aquino cultivate their chiles using an old — and time - try out — Mesoamerican agricultural crop system of rules call milpa , which preserve biodiversity . Such tending results in a complex , full-bodied , and smoky pepper . And by extension , a great salsa macha .
Photo courtesy of Compañera
Pura Macha
XILLI
