Essential Mexican Herbs and Spices for the Commercial Kitchen
JULY 2023
Cooking for a crowd requires ingenuity, creativity, and making sure your commercial kitchen is well-stocked with the necessary ingredients and spices to spice up your recipes.
When it comes to Mexican cuisine ingredients, having the right spices can make your meals stand out to your customers. This is especially important to caterers, as Mexican dishes (both sweet and savory) make one of the best catering dishes to feed large crowds.
Below, we help you stock your kitchen with the right spices for Mexican dishes to satisfy the taste buds of your customers and offer them unique flavors using traditional Mexican spices.
Traditional Mexican Spices and Herbs to Keep Your Kitchen Stocked
Chefs agree that the best traditional Mexican spices to stock in your kitchen include:
- Mexican Oregano
- Cilantro
- Garlic and Garlic Powder
- Cumin
- Chili Powder
- Paprika
- Onion Powder
- Cayenne
- Coriander
- White and Black Pepper
- All Spice
- Cinnamon
- Mexican Vanilla
- Cloves
From these key ingredients, you will be able to make a number of great Mexican dishes—from salsa to guacamole to even more savory dishes like burritos, tacos, and enchiladas. You’ll also find many advantages to experimenting with these ingredients for sweet dishes, like dessert chimichangas, sopapilla cheesecake, and Mexican hot chocolate.
You can shop most of these spices on our website, where you can purchase them in bulk so your kitchen remains well-stocked for each upcoming event.
What Are the Best Mexican Dishes to Make for a Crowd?
Using the traditional Mexican spices above, you’ll have what you need for some of these more popular Mexican recipes for catering events:
Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas
Needed spices and herbs:
- Chili powder
- Ground cumin
- Dried oregano
- Smoked paprika
- Kosher salt and ground pepper
- Garlic cloves
- Cilantro leaves
Ground Beef Tacos
Needed spices and herbs:
- Chili powder
- Salt
- Cumin
- Oregano
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
Chicken Tamales
Empanadas
Needed spices and herbs:
- Salt
- Paprika
- Garlic cloves
- Oregano
- Red pepper flakes
- Ground white pepper
- Ground cumin
How to Blend Your Own Mexican Spices
Once you have a good stock of Mexican spices in your space, you can start experimenting with different spice blends to make it super easy to throw on any dish or use in marinades for your meats.
Rather than use traditional taco seasoning, you can make your catering meals stand out by blending your own spices together. The key to blending your own Mexican spices is taking time to experiment with different recipes to find the ones that are right for each dish to bring out the Mexican flavors.
Healthy Fitness Foods uses the following Mexican spice blend recipe:
- Chili powder
- Ancho powder or smoked paprika
- Cumin
- Oregano
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
- Chipotle chili
- Coriander
- Celery seeds
- Salt
Check out their article for ways to use this spice blend on your meals, and tinker with this recipe for your own Mexican cooking.
On a final note, if buying pre-blended Mexican seasoning saves you more time and energy as you prepare for your catering events, look for more unique Mexican spice mixes that can’t be found anywhere else to highlight unique flavors in your Mexican dishes. We offer a number of them that you can try.