Chipotle Mayo
Mayonnaise blended with chipotle peppers in adobo, lime juice and garlic into a smoky, mildly hot sauce.
Where This Goes Wrong
Start with a little chipotle.
Chop the pepper finely.
Let it stand, as the heat builds.
Use the leftover tin in a stew or marinade.
Making Chipotle Mayo
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Stir the chipotle, adobo sauce, lime juice, garlic and salt into the mayonnaise until evenly mixed.
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Taste and add more adobo sauce or salt if it needs it.
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Chill for 30 minutes to let the flavours settle.
Why It Works
A sauce for a taco night or a burger evening, made in two minutes and tastier than anything from a bottle. The chipotle in adobo does all the work.
Chipotles are smoked jalapeños, and the tin comes with a rich red sauce. Both are used here. Chop one pepper finely, or blend it, and add a spoon of the adobo sauce for colour and smoke. Start with less than you think you need. Add chipotle a little at a time. The heat builds as the sauce stands.
Stir the pepper into the mayonnaise with the lime juice and garlic until the sauce is evenly speckled and orange-brown. Taste, and add more adobo or salt if it needs it.
Let it stand in the fridge for 30 minutes. Serve with sweet potato fries, in a burger, over grilled corn, or spread in a wrap. Freeze leftover chipotles from the tin in a spoonful of their sauce, so the rest of the tin is not wasted.
After You've Cooked It
Keeps in the fridge for 5 days in a covered jar.
Ingredient Swaps
- Lemon is the everyday swap for lime in this kind of dish — the acidity plays the same role even though the flavour is not identical.
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Good With
- Sweet potato fries
- Grilled corn
- Burgers
- Fish tacos
Questions and Answers
How long does Chipotle Mayo take to make?
5 minutes of preparation and of cooking, plus 30 minutes of chilling, so allow 35 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 8.
What's in a Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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