Chorizo Recipe

What Is Chorizo?

Chorizo is a Spanish or Mexican sausage with lots of spices, garlic, and herbs. The Spanish variety is cured and dried, and my recipe is more like Mexican chorizo, which is cooked fresh. It’s often stuffed into casings, but I skipped this step — and used a shortcut for the peppers to make it even faster.

Ingredients & Substitutions

Here I explain the best ingredients for my homemade chorizo recipe, what each one does, and substitution options. For measurements, see the recipe card.

• Ground Meat – I used ground pork, but you can also use ground beef. Even ground chicken or ground turkey is fine. This recipe is essentially chorizo sausage (minus the casing), but I don’t recommend actually buying sausage for it, because that’s preseasoned and we’re going to season it ourselves.
• Spices – Traditional chorizo recipes rehydrate ancho and guajillo chiles and puree them, but I just use a spice blend that’s so much faster. You’ll need paprika, chili powder, cumin, dried oregano, coriander, sea salt, and cinnamon. If you can get your hands on Mexican oregano and ancho chile powder, those taste even closer to authentic versions.
• Aromatics – Onion and garlic! I much prefer fresh ones here, but you can substitute a tablespoon of onion powder and 3/4 teaspoon of garlic powder if you want it extra easy.
• Olive Oil – For your skillet. Avocado oil works well, too.
• White Vinegar – Spanish chorizo has this to help with curing, but I just add it to my Mexican chorizo recipe for flavor.

How To Cook Chorizo

I have step-by-step photos here to help you visualize the recipe. For full instructions with amounts and temperatures, see the recipe card.

1. Mix the spices. Just combine the paprika, chili powder, cumin, dried oregano, coriander, sea salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl or jar. I’ve done this in advance, too!
2. Season the meat. Place the pork in a large bowl, add the spice mixture, and stir by hand.

3. Cook the aromatics. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and onions, and cook until onions are translucent and starting to brown on the edges.
4. Cook the chorizo sausage. Increase the heat to medium-high, add the pork mixture, and fry until fully cooked. Break apart as you go.
5. Stir in the vinegar. At this point you can adjust salt to your taste, too.

Ways To Use It

This chorizo recipe can work pretty much anywhere that you’d use ground meat and have Mexican flavors happening. Here are the ways I’ve used it so far:

• Tacos – I love chorizo tacos! In my picture above, I stuffed the meat into tortillas with homemade salsa, shredded cheese, avocado, cilantro, and lime wedges. You can also swap this meat into my taco stuffed peppers, zucchini taco boats, or taco salad.
• Breakfast – My favorite ways to make chorizo and eggs is to either scramble them together or add the meat to my sweet potato hash. You can also tuck it into an omelette or my egg sausage muffins for more flavor.
• Dips – Swap the meat in my Rotel dip or taco dip, or even mix it into queso dip.