Signs You’re Eating The Best Mexican Food

Various cuisines around the globe never fail to amaze people with their wonderful quirks and flavors. These recipes are from the heritage, culture, and exploration of different ingredients and techniques in cooking to ensure that they’re always pleasing and palatable.

For food enthusiasts who love searching for exotic recipes and cuisines, Mexican food is undoubtedly one of the best delicacies in the world. 

Mexican food dates back from the traditional recipes of the Aztecs and Mayans, influenced by the colonization of the Spanish regime and infused with today’s modern techniques. You have probably tasted a Mexican dish at least once but failed to recognize it. 

If you’re currently having Mexican, you could watch out for these signs to know if you’re eating the best Mexican food. The best Mexican restaurant Las Vegas and other areas should be able to show you the following:

There Is More Than One Sauce

Sauces and dips are the centerpiece of Mexican tables. There are only rare occasions where you might be served a Mexican dish without any dip or sauce accompanying it.

They’re made to be dipped, sprinkled, or poured into various dishes, and they always have varying degrees of spiciness in them. The most common table sauces and dips in Mexican cuisine are:

• Guacamoles: Simply put, guacamoles are dips made from mashed avocados, sea salt, lime juice, jalapeño, cilantro, and onions. In other regions, ingredients added to avocados can vary as long as the base will remain the same.

• Pico de Gallo: Compared with guacamoles, they almost have the same ingredients except for the base. If guacamole is an avocado-based dip, pico de gallo centers on chopped raw tomatoes.

• Salsa Verde: Also known as green sauce, salsa verde is a spicy sauce made from tomatillo and green chili peppers. They can either be cooked, roasted, raw, or a combination of these styles.

For most food experts, a restaurant that covers everything with sauces might sound fishy as they might be trying to hide something when it comes to the quality of their dishes. But in Mexican food, the more sauces and dips, the merrier.

However, the sauces shouldn’t be served already poured on the main dishes themselves, but only placed on the side so you can decide how you’ll eat it. Whichever it is, the best Mexican dishes and courses should always be accompanied with more than one salsa.

You should always see different colors of sauces instead of one saucer with a bland dip.

There Won’t Be Much Cheese

Cheese isn’t popular in the Mexican cuisine. You might not see any forms of cheese in their tables as they prioritize sauces and dips, except for quesadillas and enchiladas. Quesadillas are one of the crowd’s favorites that highlights cheese.

This taco is filled with cheese, meat, and vegetables, and they’re sometimes tricky to cook, so you should be careful in preparing them to avoid the usual quesadilla cooking mistakes.

On the other hand, enchiladas are corn tortillas also filled with meat, cheese, beans, potatoes, and vegetables that are covered in chili sauce. Even though these dishes contain cheese, a good Mexican quesadilla and enchilada shouldn’t be too cheesy and greasy.

Fake fast food Mexican restaurants who claim to be “authentic” usually serve unhealthy and fatty dishes, but the real ones are on the healthy and meaty side.

They should serve a good combination of protein, vegetables, fruits, and their best spices and herbs, which are not covered with great amounts of cheese. 

Lime Juice Is Freshly Squeezed

One of the best fruits that Mexicans love to incorporate into their dishes is lime. Lime juice gives them the right kick of the fresh flavor that can be sprinkled on sweet and savory delicacies, drinks, soups, grilled meat, vegetable salads, potato chips, tacos, and more.

The sour taste of lime juice complements the Mexican variety of dishes well, and real Mexican restaurants will never miss placing a bowl full of halved limes by their side. 

While commercially-sold bottled lime juices are more convenient to use, good Mexican food has freshly squeezed lime to add the perfect burst of flavor.

Mexican food aficionados will immediately notice the difference between these two, even though the bottled lime juice has been kept properly in the fridge. Instead of storing bottled ones, it’s better to have real and fresh lime. You can also use a juicer or just do it manually.

There’s Always Fresh Cilantro

When it comes to natural herbs, nothing can be better than the cilantro. Coriandrum sativum, which can also be associated with coriander, exists in many Mexican dishes, and this is a good way of knowing if the Mexican food served in front of you is great.

A good Mexican dish should be sprinkled with fresh and natural cilantro. 

Dried cilantro spices are likewise common in supermarkets, but it has little flavor. Good Mexican dishes have fresh cilantro with tender stems and leaves intact, as this is where the flavors burst.

The roots and hard stems should be discarded, and the remaining parts should be finely chopped.

Tender And Stretchy Beef

It’s time to talk about tacos: tacos are tortillas filled with a variety of ingredients, and the crowd’s favorite are usually ground beef tacos. The ground beef fillings should not be crumbly but tender and stretchy, or you’ll have a hard time enjoying your food. The type of meat used in this filing is simply ground beef with 70% to 80% lean meat. 

While cooking the ground beef, a good amount of oil will do. Excessive oil will make the filling greasy, as the fats in the ground beef will accumulate grease after some time. In addition, real tacos must be complemented with asada, tripas, adobado, lengua, chorizo, or cesos. 

Fresh and Crispy Tortillas

Tortillas are the key to creating the best traditional Mexican dishes mentioned, such as tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas, chilaquiles, tostadas, and more. Thus, the tortillas have to be fresh and crispy. The best tortillas in Mexican dishes are made by hand or bought from well-known tortillerias. Simply put, store-bought tortillas can’t beat handmade ones.

Rubbery and stale tortillas are a big no-no when it comes to authentic Mexican food. This puts all flavors in the dish at a disadvantage due to the tortilla’s texture.

Even though handmade tortillas could mean pricier dishes, it is fair to put your money’s worth in it instead of tasting tortillas that aren’t fresh.

Conclusion

Although you can trick the eyes, the tongue will always recognize the authenticity of Mexican food. With multiple flavors available in their cuisine, you’ll absolutely never get tired of their dishes, especially when you’re served with good ones.