Chile guajillo

Chile guajillo is a smooth-skinned, reddish-brown dried chile, the dried form of the mirasol, and with the ancho one of the two most used chiles in Mexico. It gives color and body to adobos, birria and the marinades of many taco meats.

Description

Larousse describes the guajillo as a dried chile with shiny, smooth reddish-brown skin, an elongated triangle roughly 10 cm long and 4 cm wide. Fresh, it is the chile mirasol; a hotter derived variety is called travieso. It is cheap and sold in every market.

Culinary use

The guajillo supplies color and body rather than heat alone and is rarely used on its own, since it makes a poor salsa by itself; it is usually combined with other chiles, especially ancho. It goes into stews of pork, chicken and beef, moles, adobos and spicy sauces. In Jalisco and Colima it is used for cuachala and sometimes for birria, and Hidalgo-style mixiotes marinate meat in guajillo and pasilla. It can also stand in for Oaxacan chilhuacle.

Names

Its wide use has produced many regional names, among them cascabel in parts of the Bajío and Chihuahua, cuachalero in Colima and Jalisco, guajón in San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas and tres venas in San Luis Potosí.

Reviews

See also

• Chile ancho
• Chile pasilla
• Adobo
• Consomé de birria
• Mixiote leaf

References

1. "Chile guajillo". Larousse Cocina (Diccionario enciclopédico de la Gastronomía Mexicana). Retrieved 2026-10-10.
2. "Adobo". Larousse Cocina (Diccionario enciclopédico de la Gastronomía Mexicana). Retrieved 2026-10-10.
3. "Mixiote". Larousse Cocina (Diccionario enciclopédico de la Gastronomía Mexicana). Retrieved 2026-10-10.