From beef, pork, chicken, to vegetables and even sweet versions like chocolate and strawberry, there is a world of tamales to choose from! Perhaps the most traditional one is a hot tamales called “tamal de rojo” or red tamales that consist of slowly stewed meat (pork or beef), cooked in a red sauce made with Mexican dried chillies. They are made and served on special celebrations in Mexico like Day of the Dead, Christmas time and Dia de la Candelaria, but you can also find them all year round.
This is our tamales recipe for tamal de rojo, where we use our signature Gran Luchito Chipotle Paste to cook the beef and make it into delicious and succulent meat, ready to go into the tamales. We’ve substituted the lard for butter, as it’s more commonly used here in the UK, but you can use pork lard as well if you wish to.
We recommend that you prepare your tamales ahead of time as it’s a lengthy process! They can also easily be frozen for up to 3 months, or kept in the fridge to consume within that week.
