Ingredients · Spice
Guajillo Chile
Capsicum annuum · Solanaceae (nightshade family)
What it’s like, and how to use it
How to use it
Toast, soak and blend, the same as ancho. In red enchilada sauce, pozole, birria, adobo and mole pastes. It is the chile to reach for when you want red colour and brightness rather than depth. Strain the blended paste — guajillo skin stays tough.
With food
Beef, goat and pork. Hominy and corn. Tomato. Lime. Oregano. Onion and garlic. Avocado.
With spices
Ancho and pasilla. Cumin and Mexican oregano. Bay. Clove and cinnamon, in birria. Chipotle, for smoke.
With tea
Not a tea ingredient.
Its story
Where it comes from
Grown mainly in Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Durango and Aguascalientes — the dry high plains of north-central Mexico. Zacatecas is one of the main producers. Our lot names no origin.
What happened
Guajillo is the chile of pozole and birria. Pozole was a ceremonial dish because maize was sacred, and research drawn from the friars' accounts suggests the meat in the pre-conquest ceremonial version may at times have been human, in the context of sacrifice — scholars dispute how common that was. Sahagún mentions pozole in the sixteenth-century Florentine Codex. Birria comes with its own folk story: that after 1519 the Spanish brought goats, found themselves overrun, and gave the animals to Indigenous people, who marinated the tough meat into something so good the Spanish called it birria — worthless. The etymology is disputed, and the story is really about a colonised cook's skill. Birria tacos and quesabirria, first developed in Tijuana, swept North American kitchens in the 2010s.
On the shelf with it
Sold on its own, and in these blends.
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Sold outGuajillo Chili Powder
Regular price From $6.99 CADRegular price
