Easy Mexican Chorizo
Mexican chorizo is the key ingredient to my favorite Tex-Mex breakfast, huevos con chorizo, but it also adds magic to charro beans, refried beans, and choriqueso. With rich and flavorful spices, this homemade Mexican sausage gives a smoky and tangy punch to dishes. It’s worth making from scratch, and it freezes well so you can enjoy it over several months.
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Why I Love This Recipe
Cook chorizo sausage with eggs and wrap it in a flour tortilla with homemade salsa and refried beans, and I’ll be in Heaven. Over the years, my family has tested store-bought chorizo brands, and nothing compares to our homemade chorizo recipe.
Here’s why I love this recipe:
- No mixing of spices. To avoid grinding our own spices, we use a spice blend that comes from La India Packing Company based in Laredo, Texas (my parents’ hometown).
- Simple process with little active time. While this recipe takes a few days to make from start to finish, it’s quite simple and doesn’t require much active time.
- Involves the whole family. The most time-consuming part is packaging your chorizo sausages at the end, but we like to get the whole family involved to finish quickly. This communal effort is similar to making tamales, but far easier.
See the full recipe at the end of this post. I’m also including helpful tips below as you make your first batch.
What is chorizo?
Mexican chorizo is a ground pork sausage marinated with vinegar and mixed with a blend of spices. Typical chorizo spices include paprika, chili pepper, salt, garlic, black pepper, cumin, oregano, bay leaf, sage, and thyme.
Unlike Spanish chorizo, which comes as dried sausage links, Mexican chorizo is made of spiced ground pork (without a casing) that is broken up when cooked and then combined with other ingredients such as eggs, beans, or cheese.
What type of meat do you use for Mexican chorizo?
You can buy store-bought ground pork or grind your own pork butt if you choose. You’ll get the best quality by grinding the meat yourself, but pork that is ground and packaged in the store is the next best option.
Tip for Grinding Pork
If grinding your own pork, remove the pork from the bone and grind all the meat once. For the best texture, grind half of the meat again and combine it with the other half that was ground once.
How to Make Chorizo: Overview
There are three main steps to making Mexican chorizo: Marinating, Draining, and Seasoning.
Marinating
Use white vinegar to prepare the pork overnight in the refrigerator, mixing it once or twice in between. The vinegar helps to break down the proteins in the meat, making it juicy and tender.
I like to use nitrile gloves when processing the meat, but you can also use your bare hands.
Draining the Meat
After letting the pork marinate in vinegar, you’ll drain most of the vinegar to remove the moisture.
Cheesecloth works well to drain the remaining vinegar. You can hang the cheesecloth from a cabinet and let it drain into a glass dish for about 2 hours before proceeding with the next step.
Tip for Draining Pork
Newspaper helps absorb the vinegar in the bottom of a glass dish or Dutch oven for easier cleanup later.
Seasoning the Meat with Chorizo Spices
Once the vinegar has drained, it’s time to add the spices! I highly recommend this chorizo spice blend. Mix the spices until they are well combined with the pork.
Adding spice blend 
Mixing spices into pork
The final step is packaging the sausage in plastic wrap for easy storage.
Note: Always remove the food wrap before cooking the sausage.
Each sausage link is approximately 1.5-2 ounces, which is a good portion for two eggs if making huevos con chorizo. After twisting the ends of the food wrap, place a few sausage links in a food storage bag to enjoy later.
Rolling chorizo in food wrap 
Twisting off the ends
Storage Tips
Store the sausage links in the refrigerator for up to 6 weeks or in the freezer for up to 6 months to a year.
You can store the links in the freezer and thaw them in the refrigerator overnight before using them for breakfast or other Tex-Mex side dishes.
What can you make with Mexican chorizo?
My favorite way to enjoy chorizo is with eggs for breakfast (huevos con chorizo).
Easy Huevos Con Chorizo
Remove the casing or plastic wrap from the chorizo and heat the meat in a frying pan with 1 tablespoon of cooking oil until it turns dark brown in color (about 5 minutes).
Then, add two eggs per 1.5 ounces of chorizo, and stir until the eggs are fully scrambled and blended. Serve the huevos con chorizo with flour tortillas and the salsa of your choice. We suggest pico de gallo as a topping for extra texture.
More Ways to Enjoy Chorizo
You can also substitute chorizo for dishes where you might otherwise use bacon. Mix it with onion for frijoles a la charra, or combine it with queso fundido to make choriqueso, a delicious appetizer.
More Breakfast Recipes to Try
Mexican Chorizo
Equipment
- Meat grinder optional, if grinding pork
- Nitrile gloves optional
Ingredients
- 3 lbs ground pork (or pork butt, if grinding)
- 1 cup white vinegar (scant cup)
- 1 cup chorizo spices (scant cup)
Instructions
Grind the pork (optional)
- To grind your own pork, remove any bones from the pork and feed the meat through the grinder once. Then grind half of the batch a second time. Combine the two halves for the perfect texture.
Marinate the pork
- Place the ground pork in a glass dish and add the white vinegar, mixing it well with your hands to combine.
- Cover the dish with food wrap and place it in the refrigerator overnight, or at least 10 hours. You may need to mix the meat once or twice every few hours to fully combine the mixture.
Drain the pork
- Divide the pork among pieces of cheesecloth, and hang the meat above a glass dish or Dutch oven to drain the remaining vinegar (about 2 hours). Use clothespins as necessary to secure the cheesecloth to a cabinet knob for draining.
Season the pork
- In a glass dish, add the chorizo spices to the pork in batches, mixing the spices into the pork gradually with your hands. You may want to use nitrile gloves to protect your hands while blending the spices.
Package the chorizo sausage
- Using small squares of plastic food wrap, roll about 1.5-2 ounces of pork into the shape of a small sausage link, twisting the ends tightly.
- Remove the plastic wrap and cook the chorizo sausage with 1 tablespoon of oil until it turns a deep brown color before adding eggs, beans, or another side of your choice.
