Although I love to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, sometimes I don’t have enough time to prepare a made-from-scratch meal. That’s when I turn to some of the shortcuts I have learned during the time spent in the kitchen and reading cooking books and blogs.

A good plate of chilaquiles is one of my all time favorite Mexican breakfasts. I am not very proud of this quick chilaquiles recipe, but like I said before, I didn’t have enough time to prepare the traditional recipe. However, the result wasn’t too bad and you can still use it for a quick breakfast or on a lazy weekend morning when spending a lot of time in the kitchen is not what you are looking forward to.

For this recipe you will need:

1 bag of tortilla chips (restaurant style)
1 24oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 medium size onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp ground chipotle
3 tbsp olive oil
queso fresco or Mexican blend shredded cheese
sour cream
salt

Chop half of the onion and garlic.
Heat olive oil in a saucepan.
Sauté chopped onion and garlic until they turn translucent.
Add can of tomatoes, ground chipotle and salt to taste and let it boil on a medium fire for about 10 minutes.

Slice the rest of the onion in strips.
In a plate serve a handful of tortilla chips and cover with the sauce. Let it sit for a couple of minutes to let the chips absorb it.
Top with sour cream, cheese and onion.
You can serve the chilaquiles with a slice of avocado, refried beans, bistec (steak) or eggs.

I served them with scrambled eggs. The recipe for perfect scrambled eggs (not the leathery, chewy kind) is in this Chef John’s blog post.

I will post the recipe for traditional chilaquiles in the future. This was only an introduction to this delicious dish.

Fun fact: Chilaquiles in Mexico are believed to help get over la cruda (hangover) when they are very spicy. However, any spicy dish will only make it worse for an already irritated stomach after a night of drinking. Even though a lot of people know this, in Mexico tradition is stronger than reason and chilaquiles, and other spicy dishes, are consumed in large quantities during weekend breakfasts.

Buen Provecho!