The best enchilada sauce you can buy at the grocery store should taste like a recipe that’s been handed down for generations. The flavors should be deep and bold while remaining subtle. The texture needs to be just right (not too thin, not too thick). It should complement the taste of corn tortillas, cheese, chicken, beef, seafood, and vegetables. Basically, it should work with any filling.
There are tons of store bought enchilada sauce options, but you don’t care about that! You want to know about the best enchilada sauce, whether you’re looking for the best red enchilada sauce, the best green enchilada sauce, or the best canned enchilada sauce for your trays of homemade enchiladas. Well, look no further: Over the course of two separate taste tests, we tried can after can of premade enchilada sauce to find out the best you can buy. These three are the best in their respective categories, and I’m certain you and your family will love them.
- Las Palmas Green Chile Enchilada Sauce
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Las Palmas makes the best green enchilada sauce at the grocery store. It’s a little tangy, super savory, and it tastes very fresh, even though it’s canned enchilada sauce. If you’re a green sauce lover, you will be thrilled with this premade enchilada sauce. You won’t just want to stop at enchiladas! Wet burritos, loaded nachos, and tortas would all welcome this zesty store bought enchilada sauce with open arms.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- La Victoria Creamy Green Chili Enchilada Sauce
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If you prefer a creamy enchilada sauce, La Victoria Creamy Chili premade enchilada sauce is the best enchilada sauce at the grocery store. This premade enchilada sauce, which comes in a jar rather than a can, isn’t spicy at all, even though it has the word “chili” in its name. Instead, it’s rich, savory, and herbaceous. It’s the store bought enchilada sauce you should be buying for at-home enchiladas suizas (aka chicken enchiladas in a creamy green sauce). Tasting this sauce made me want to start shredding chicken with my left hand and holding a margarita with my right.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Hatch Organic Red Enchilada Sauce
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If you’re looking for the best red enchilada sauce, Hatch makes the best enchilada sauce we found. This can is all you need to cook enchiladas at home that taste like they came from a restaurant. First of all, the sauce is the ideal thickness. It will drape itself around your tortillas. And when it comes to flavor, this is spot on. It’s a little smoky, slightly tomatoey, and chili-forward without being spicy. I truly believe that this is the best store bought enchilada sauce because it could (and will) please anyone and everyone. It’s that good.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
Best Green
Best Creamy
Best Red
Other Products We Tried: La Victoria Lime Tomatillo, La Victoria Green, Old El Paso Green, La Victoria Traditional, Old El Paso Red, Great Value Red, El Pato Green, Hatch Green Chili, Macayo
Why did you rank both green and red enchilada sauces against each other? Isn’t that apples and oranges? I would of liked to have seen red sauces ranked by themselves and the same with the green sauces.
Do you still make the enchiladas sauce? I can’t find it anywhere, it is the very best
Nothing at all will ever compare to Macayo’s red or green sauce. The restaurant in Phoenix is the very best has been around since the 1950’s
macayo’s Enchilada sauce
It covers the best it’s thick
great taste
I don’t see my go-to brand, La Preferida green enchilada sauce. Don’t like it? I think next time I will try Frontera (the green one). I use the stuff to make a great five-ingredient green chicken enchilada recipe. (1 rotisserie chicken, 2 cans of green enchilada sauce, shredded Mexican cheese blend, cilantro, and corn tortillas. Astonishingly good, considering how the recipe reads.)
Where can you find these sauces?