Dishes you only eat in Mexico: a guide to what Mexicans eat every day

What Mexico really eats when nobody is looking

Outside Mexico, Mexican food is known by a handful of names: tacos, guacamole, burritos, nachos and, with luck, mole or cochinita pibil. But the food that fills the day for millions of people in the country is something else, and it hardly ever travels. These are cheap, quick dishes, closely tied to a time of day, to a particular bread or masa, and often to a single city. Some never leave Mexico because they depend on an ingredient that is hard to find abroad; others because they are simply taken for granted: nobody thinks of exporting the breakfast from the street corner.

This guide brings together fifteen of those dishes, ordered the way someone spending a whole day in Mexico would live them: from street breakfast to the afternoon snack, the Sunday broth and the specialities of the north and the coast. Each has its own article with more detail, regional variants and recipes for making it at home.

Street breakfasts: first thing in the morning

Chilaquiles

Tortilla chips bathed in red or green salsa, with cream, cheese, onion and often egg or chicken. They were born as a way to use up yesterday's tortillas and today they are the quintessential fonda breakfast. Every region has its own version, from Guadalajara's tapatíos to those made with mole or cecina; we tell you about them in our guide to red, green and regional chilaquiles.

Guajolota

A tamale inside a bolillo roll. As simple as that, and as filling as that. In Mexico City it is sold in the morning alongside atole, and it is one of the tortas that most surprises visitors. It features in our round-up of Mexican tortas by region, along with the pambazo, the pepito, the cubana and Guadalajara's lonche.

Tacos de canasta

Small tacos filled with potato, beans, chicharrón or adobo, stacked in a basket lined with cloth and plastic so that they "sweat" in their own steam. They are sold from a bicycle and eaten standing up, at any time of the morning. Their origin is traced to a village in Tlaxcala; the full story is in what tacos de canasta are.

Enfrijoladas, entomatadas and enmoladas

Tortillas dipped in bean, tomato or mole sauce, folded and topped with cheese and cream. They are the humble cousins of the enchilada and turn up at home breakfasts and fonda lunches all over the country. We explain the differences in enfrijoladas, entomatadas and enmoladas.

At midday: the stall, the fonda and the market

Tacos de guisado

Home cooking in taco form: chicharrón in green salsa, tinga, rajas con crema, picadillo or mole verde, served from earthenware pots onto a double tortilla, with rice or hard-boiled egg. They are different from tacos de canasta, although the two are often confused. We explain it in tacos de guisado and their fonda stews.

Gorditas

A thick corn masa cake that is opened like a pocket and filled: with chicharrón prensado in central Mexico, made with flour in the north, sweet with nata or piloncillo in other regions, and the little gorditas de La Villa sold wrapped in tissue paper beside the Basilica of Guadalupe. It is all in our guide to gorditas by region.

Quesadillas (with or without cheese)

In Mexico City a quesadilla may contain no cheese, a custom that sparks endless arguments with the rest of the country, where anything without cheese is called a doblada. Made from raw masa or a tortilla, griddled or fried, filled with courgette flower, huitlacoche or tinga: we go through it all in quesadillas with or without cheese.

Tostadas

Tortillas browned until crisp and topped with almost anything: beef trotter in vinegar, tinga, ceviche, cueritos or, on the coast, seafood. They are market food through and through. They are covered in Mexican tostadas.

Flautas and tacos dorados

Tortillas rolled round a filling, fried until crisp and topped with lettuce, cream, cheese and salsa. Depending on the area they are called flautas, tacos dorados or taquitos, and the names do not always mean the same thing. We clear it up in flautas, tacos dorados and taquitos.

The weekend: broths and meats with a history

Menudo or pancita

A beef tripe soup that is called menudo in the north, pancita in the centre and mondongo in the south or on the Gulf. It is Sunday food and, for many, the folk remedy for the morning after a party. We tell the story in menudo, pancita and mondongo.

Cecina and tasajo

Thin, salted, dried meats that are grilled and eaten in tacos, with beans, cream and salsa. Cecina de Yecapixtla, from Morelos, is the benchmark for beef cecina; cecina enchilada is pork with chilli, and in Oaxaca tasajo goes with tlayudas. We compare them in cecina, tasajo and cecina enchilada.

From the north and the coast: dishes with a border

Sonoran dogos

A hot dog with little that is American about it: a bacon-wrapped sausage, a soft bolillo-style roll, beans, onion, tomato, mayonnaise, mustard and chillies. It is the late-night cart supper of Hermosillo and much of the north-west. We explain it in Hermosillo's dogos.

Ensenada-style fish tacos

Battered fried fish, served in a corn tortilla with shredded cabbage, cream or mayonnaise and salsa. They are associated with the fish market in Ensenada, Baja California, and are now eaten all over the peninsula. We tell the story in Ensenada-style fish tacos.

The afternoon: a street snack

Tostilocos, dorilocos and chicharrones preparados

A bag of tortilla chips or other crisps slit open along one side and filled with cueritos, cucumber, jícama, peanuts, chamoy, lime and salsa. Wheat-flour chicharrones preparados, with cream, cabbage and tomato, are another after-school favourite. We gather them together in street snacks: tostilocos, dorilocos and chicharrones preparados.

Three more that almost never leave Mexico

The list could go on. These three dishes do not have their own article in this series, but they deserve a mention because they are eaten enormously in Mexico and are barely known abroad:

• Tlacoyos and huaraches. The tlacoyo is an oval of masa filled with beans, broad beans or requesón and cooked on the comal; its name comes from Nahuatl. The huarache is its large, open version, shaped like the sole of a sandal, and the story most often cited places it at a Mexico City stall in the 1930s.
• Tacos árabes. A Puebla speciality: marinated pork cooked on a vertical spit and served in Arab-style flatbread instead of a tortilla. They are linked to the arrival of immigrants from the Middle East in the twentieth century and are a close relative of tacos al pastor. Here is our recipe for tacos árabes.
• Carne en su jugo. A Guadalajara broth of chopped beef with bacon, beans and onion, served with coriander, radish and lime. Several Guadalajara families dispute its authorship, but every version places it in the mid-twentieth century. Here is our recipe for carne en su jugo.

How to spot them if you travel to Mexico

Most of these dishes are not found in restaurants with printed menus but at stalls, markets, fondas and carts. A few clues help:

• The time of day matters. Tamales, guajolotas, tacos de canasta and chilaquiles are morning food; tacos de guisado and tostadas, midday; dogos and many tacos, night. Look for a dish at the wrong time and you will probably not find it.
• The name changes with the state. Menudo or pancita, lonche or torta, flauta or taco dorado: if people do not recognise what you are asking for, describe the dish.
• The salsas are part of the dish. Almost everything arrives with a salsa on the side or on top. Ask which one is hotter before helping yourself; our guide to Mexican chillies helps you understand where each kind of heat comes from.
• The taco is only the beginning. To see how a single format came to have so many variants, read our history of tacos.

Frequently asked questions

Why are these dishes so hard to find outside Mexico?

Because they depend on things that are hard to reproduce abroad: a specific bread (telera, birote), fresh nixtamalised corn masa, cuts such as beef tripe or trotter, or a style of street selling closely tied to the daily routine. Many Mexican restaurants abroad prefer dishes that are easier to serve at the table.

Which of these dishes is easiest to make at home?

Enfrijoladas, tostadas and chilaquiles need only tortillas, a good salsa and a few store-cupboard ingredients. Tacos de canasta and gorditas call for a little more practice with the masa.

Are these dishes spicy?

The heat almost always comes separately, in the salsa, and you can ask for it sin chile. The exceptions are preparations such as the pambazo or the torta ahogada, where the sauce is part of the dish.

Are there vegetarian options?

Yes: courgette-flower or huitlacoche quesadillas, potato or bean tacos de canasta, enfrijoladas, broad-bean tlacoyos and many tostadas. It is worth asking whether the beans or rice contain lard.

Sources

• The sources for each dish are detailed in its own article, linked in each section.
• Wikipedia, «Huarache (food)» and «Tlacoyo» (attributed origin of the huarache in Mexico City around the 1930s; Nahuatl etymology of the tlacoyo).
• Wikipedia, «Al pastor», and L.A. Taco, «Tacos árabes in Puebla, Mexico» (tacos árabes in Puebla and their link with Middle Eastern immigrants; disputed authorship).
• ADN40, «Disfruta un clásico platillo de Jalisco en la ruta de la carne en su jugo», and Azteca Jalisco, «Historia de las carnes en su jugo de Guadalajara» (Guadalajara origin in the mid-twentieth century; disputed authorship).