Why Chilaquiles are my favorite breakfast from Mexico City.

I’m always on the hunt for Chilaquiles and this version is quick hitter with some leftover salsa and tortilla chips.

📚 Videos & Sources mentioned:

Affiliate Disclosure:

[Travelenthusiastrk]

That transition with the coffee and cooking it live with the dish is a great way to use a sponsor Ethan .Seriously, this feels like a genuinely and authentic way to show a sponsor (even if I don't personally drink coffee). Another great video!

[Carnac]

When I went to Mexico with a Mexican friend for the first time I had Chliaquiles every morning for a week. Best thing ever. That and Huevos Rancheros.

[skllerdrag]

So glad you're posting these recipe videos again Ethan!

[drauc]

I love these unedited, live format videos

[FreckleFinance]

I'm always looking for quick but healthy breakfast ideas out of our basics and I think my kids would like this!

[NarutoFreak]

I have tortilla chips in my house extremely irregularly, but I've been interested in trying this form factor out for them for a while since I saw you talk about them on the main channel. Might just be worth their own special purchase. I suppose it works the same if I'm trying to use up my own leftover tortillas before they go fully stale.

I will also say, as an aside, it's been fun watching that magical Mexico City trip some years back continue to be forefront in your mind and still help guide some of what you're practicing today. It's nice to see a trip like that leave such a lasting impression on someone, culinarily or otherwise.

[chelosoyyo]

This format hits the sweet spot for me.

[xyz]

my family uses leftover chicken mole as the sauce.
also since I'm always making the chips by pan frying tortillas, I've been frying them in 2 batches: 1 batch set aside for the crunchy topping and 2nd batch gets cooked with the sauce and allowed to get soggy. Best of both worlds!

[JeeliBeeli]

This is the first vid I've watched in a while. Keep doing them!

[arkurtzproductions]

Went to Mexico (Chiapas) for the first time last summer and Chilaquiles was my breakfast of choice the whole time. As good as it gets breakfast wise imo 👍🏻

[joshuaschmidt]

Love the video, man. I appreciate you making cooking easy. Our family has learned to repurpose ingredients and it has leveled our cooking and helped us save a lot of money. Appreciate you!

[rachellemazar]

I also make them with left over corn tortillas that haven’t been fried, I like the way they soak up the sauce. I love them with eggs

[fortunatesoul]

Many years ago I watched most of Ethan's videos about Mexican cuisine and I was constantly frustrated because we didn't had most of the ingredients neccesary for those dishes down south in the continent. Flashforward to a couple of years ago, I travelled to Mexico for studies knowing a bunch of the basics for food I had never eating in my life before then. It was a weird but great feeling having a familiar relationship to a food and then finally tasting it

[theresaanndiaz]

I love chilequiles! I have a friend who calls them breakfast nachos. For a brunch I hosted, I mixed the topotos and sauce together in a slow cooker, set out the toppings in bowls. It was easy but very well received. I passed on the egg.

[cyrollan]

thanks for the recipe, Ethan Lebowski! i've had this at a restaurant but never made it before. excited to try it!

[lynoreabbott]

I have a friend who got a recipe from a restaurant in Chicago where they cooked the onion. I have to say my favorite part of the dish is the smell of cooking onion in butter.

[Huckle]

Chilaquiles is pretty much my favorite food at this point, and you put me onto it with that original video.
I agree about fresh onion in chilaquiles. Often pickled onion mixed with an already kinda acidic enchilada style sauce is too much acidity for me. ESPECIALLY that early in the morning when im about to inhale a fat cup of black coffee.

[AsherMaximum]

This is a great concept

I think one of the things though that a lot of channels ignore is cooking for a larger family. I cook for 5 people - I'm not going to prep a bunch of chicken that I can use for 2-3 meals, that just doesn't make sense in regards to the time it would take. It's easier to cook it when needed.
And then there's the recipes that have techniques that require each serving to be cooked individually. For example, smashburgers. You can really only do 2 patties (for 1 burger) at a time in a pan, which is fine if you're just making 2 servings, but if you're making 5 or more they'll probably get cold by the time you're done with the last one.
I like to do any oven roasted veggies first while I'm prepping the meat and any toppings, then turn the oven off, and let the veggies and finished burgers keep warm in there.

Then there's the things that just take up more room in the pan than you have. It's a lot harder to fit a stir-fry for 6 people into a frying pan than it is with one for 2 people.

It also comes into play with leftovers - If I make, for example, ground beef burritos for 2 people, and I use a pack of ground beef that is just over a pound (like they usually are at my store), I'll have enough leftover beef to make another meal with just that as the protein. If I do the same for 5 people, I'll probably need 2 packs, and I'll end up with like 10oz or so left over. Not enough for a meal on it's own, so figuring out what to use that for that will feed 5 people is very different.

There's more examples that I can't think of right now, probably because at this point they're no longer issues for me, as I've already figured out how to deal with them. It would have been nice though to have some content that helped with that.

All of these are solvable issues, I just wish more videos would consider this, rather than only making recipes that assume you're cooking for 2-4 people.

[BluePoo]

Man I wish I had your creativity in the kitchen

[drkentlyons]

Thanks for sharing the on the fly cooking! What would be helpful for me is describing the why behind some of on the fly choices. For example, why add the water before blending? How did you know it needed water? And then why on the stove top to heat it up? Would microwaving it be just as good? I know your intent is to help doing things on the fly, but just knowing what was done only gets so far but the why can be repurposed (hopefully!)