Grind Your Own Tajín For Your Elote

July 2, 2024

Elote, or Mexican street corn, just may be the perfect hot-weather food. It's hard to improve on the classic grilled fresh corn coated with creamy mayo, dusted with Tajín, and sprinkled with cotija and lime. But we've done it, thanks to a simple swap for homemade Tajín, the sour-spicy-salty chili-lime seasoning that makes just about anything it touches more delicious (cucumber, jicama, watermelon, pineapple, mango, oranges, cocktail rims ... the list goes on).

It's as simple as grinding toasted, dried chiles to a powder in a Molcajete before adding salt and lime zest. You're going to want to double this recipe.

Molcajete

Homemade Tajín for Elote and More

Anderson Muñoz

Ingredients

Zest of 3 limes
1 tbsp coarse salt
5 dried guajillo chiles, destemmed and deseeded
6 dried árbol chiles, destemmed and deseeded (adjust based on desired spice level)

Directions

Toast the chiles on a comal or skillet until they’re crispy but not burnt, about 20 seconds per side.
Next, transfer the toasted chiles to your molcajete and grind them until they form a fine powder.
Add coarse salt to the molcajete and continue grinding to evenly mix the salt with the chile powder.
Grate the zest of the limes directly into the molcajete and mix thoroughly to infuse the seasoning with the citrus flavor.