A small clay bowl of dark red salsa macha with visible peanut pieces and chile flakes in oil, beside fried eggs on corn tortillas and a few whole dried chipotle chiles

Salsa Macha Guide: The Mexican Chile Oil with Nuts and Seeds

Published 12 Oct 20268 min read

Filed under Salsas Big Cock Ranch XILLI Veracruz

Salsa macha is a Mexican salsa made of dried chile fried in oil with nuts, seeds and garlic, then crushed, so a spoonful brings crunch and heat sitting in a slick of red oil. It has no tomatoes, no tomatillos and no purée (a smooth blend) of dried chiles, which is why the chef Rick Bayless calls it "an outlier in Mexico's salsa world." Most accounts trace it to the mountains of Veracruz, it keeps for months, and it has a near relative built on the same smoked chile: the chipotle, a smoke-dried jalapeño, preserved in adobo.

A few terms first. Salsa is simply the Spanish word for sauce; the Royal Spanish Academy defines it as a mixture of edible ingredients made to dress or season food. A dried chile (in Mexico, chile seco) is a chile pepper left to ripen and dry, or dehydrated. Drying makes it a more intense, more complex version of the fresh pepper, and in Mexico it often takes a new name. A chipotle is a jalapeño that has been dried by smoking. Adobo is a seasoning sauce or marinade. Confit, a French cooking word, is used here for cooking gently in fat, as opposed to frying.

What salsa macha is

In Bayless's description, salsa macha has no tomatillos, no tomatoes and no purée of dried chiles. Chiles, oil and garlic are essential, the seeds and nuts set it apart from chili crisp, and he notes that it looks for all the world like Chinese chili crisp. The oil is not a byproduct. It is the base of the salsa, and it brings the chile's color and smoke into whatever it lands on.

The chile can vary. Mexico News Daily lists the usual choices as some combination of chile de árbol (a chile Bayless calls incendiary), ancho (the dried form of the poblano), morita and chipotle (both smoked jalapeños, explained below). Bayless's own recipe suggests guajillo (the dried form of the mirasol chile) and cascabel, another dried chile, with some árbol, and he notes that a mixture of chiles can tame the heat. The crunch comes from peanuts, pumpkin seeds or other nuts and from sesame seeds.

Xilli's Salsa Macha con Cacahuate (shop Xilli Salsa Macha) shows the style stripped to its bones. Its product page lists four ingredients: canola oil, chipotle morita, peanuts and sea salt. Cacahuate, in the Royal Spanish Academy's dictionary, is the word for peanut in Mexico and Honduras. The page describes the salsa as slow-fried chipotles and toasted peanuts in a smoky chile oil, with tasting notes of nutty, smoky and spicy, a heat level it calls "addictively hot," and a vegan label (made without animal ingredients).

Where it comes from, and where the name might

Most accounts place the birth of salsa macha in the mountains of Veracruz, the Mexican state that runs along the Gulf coast, according to Bayless. Mexico News Daily traces its roots to Orizaba, a city in Veracruz. Bayless adds a note from his own travels: he has met the salsa more often in Baja California and along Mexico's west coast than in Veracruz itself.

The name is an open question, and the two leading explanations point at the two things that define the salsa. One links macha to macho, slang Bayless glosses as something potent, bold or fierce, a nod to the heat; he notes that the salsa was originally made only with árbol chiles. The other traces it to machacada, "crushed," from the verb machacar, which the Royal Spanish Academy defines as striking something to flatten it or break it into small pieces without grinding it fine. That is a precise description of salsa macha's texture. Xilli's product page offers a third reading: in Nahuatl culture (Nahuatl is the language of the Aztecs), it says, macho can be translated as "one who is worthy of imitation." None of these has been settled, and each one describes something true about the jar.

How it is made

The method is short. Bayless warms the oil over medium to medium-low heat and adds the garlic and nuts first, cooking them for about ten minutes in what he calls "more a gentle confit than frying," until the garlic is softening and the nuts are lightly golden. The chiles and sesame go in last and only for a minute or two, until they release a toasty aroma. His version then adds two tablespoons of vinegar (he prefers balsamic and notes that apple cider vinegar is more traditional in Mexico), about a quarter cup of water and salt, and the pot cools before it goes into a blender.

The blending is where the name comes back. Bayless stops once the chiles and nuts are in small pieces: the salsa "should not be puréed." The goal is a loose, crunchy oil, not a paste. The principle underneath, that warm fat pulls color and aroma out of spices and chiles, is the same one the guide to blooming spices in oil explains. Stored in a tightly closed jar in the refrigerator, Bayless writes, homemade salsa macha keeps for months.

Salsa macha, fresh salsa and chili crisp

Salsa macha sits between two better-known condiments. On one side are Mexico's familiar table salsas, made from tomatoes or tomatillos, or from a purée of dried chiles. On the other side is Chinese chili crisp, another chile oil full of fried solids. The chili crisp guide covers that jar in full, including how to read its label and how to store anything with garlic in oil. The short version of the difference is in the chile and the crunch. Chili crisp builds on chile with garlic and shallot fried until they shatter, sometimes with fermented soybean, peanut or sesame, and sometimes with numbing Sichuan pepper. Salsa macha builds on Mexican dried chiles, sometimes smoked ones, with nuts and seeds, and in Bayless's version a little vinegar.

Condiment	Base	Form of the chile	Texture	Typical role
Fresh or table salsa	Tomato, tomatillo or soaked chile, with their own juice or water	Fresh, or dried and puréed	Chunky or smooth, wet	Poured or spooned over tacos, eggs and chips
Salsa macha	Oil	Dried, sometimes smoked, fried and crushed	Crunchy solids in oil	Spooned on as a finishing condiment
Chili crisp	Oil	Dried chile, sometimes with Sichuan pepper	Crunchy fried garlic, shallot, soybean or seeds in oil	Spooned on as a finishing condiment
Chipotles in adobo	A tomato-based adobo sauce	Whole smoked jalapeños, cooked soft in the sauce	Soft pods in thick sauce	An ingredient chopped or blended into sauces, marinades and stews

Read across the rows and the base decides the job. The salsas built on juice or water are wet and go on by the spoonful or the pour. Salsa macha and chili crisp hold crunchy solids in oil and go on at the end. Chipotles in adobo sit in a third place: they are less a topping than a building block.

Chipotles in adobo: the other dried-chile jar

The chipotle starts as a jalapeño. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines it as a jalapeño chile dried through smoking, and traces the name to two Nahuatl words: chilli, chile pepper, and poctli, smoke. Mexico's agricultural statistics service, SIAP, uses chile seco as a general term for chiles left to ripen and dry, and notes that some, such as chipotle and morita, are smoked as well as dried. A University of California food preservation article adds the detail that matters when reading a label: "chipotle" covers more than one style, including chile morita and chile meco, both smoked jalapeños that differ in how they are dried and smoked. Depending on region, smoking time and other factors, Britannica explains, the process yields either the smaller, deep crimson morita or the larger brown ahumado. The chipotle morita in the Xilli salsa macha above is the same smoked jalapeño.

Chipotles are sold in two forms, according to Britannica: as smoke-dried whole pods, or preserved in a tomato-based adobo sauce. Adobo, in the Royal Spanish Academy's definition, is a broth or sauce used to season a food, and in one sense a broth of vinegar, salt, oregano, garlic and paprika used to season and preserve meats. Heat levels vary, but canned versions are typically milder, Britannica notes, and chipotle is a common ingredient in mole, a popular Mexican sauce.

Xilli's Chipotles Adobados (shop Xilli Chipotles Adobados) are braised (cooked slowly in liquid), according to the product page, until almost spreadable, and taste slightly tart and sweet, super smoky and supremely spicy. The page gives the Nahuatl behind the name as chilpocli or xillpocli, smoked chile, and translates adobados as "in marinade." For how chipotles fit among the rest of Mexico's dried chiles, and how fresh and dried chiles carry different names, see the dried chiles guide.

How to use salsa macha

Salsa macha works as a finishing condiment, which means it goes on at the end, after the cooking is done, so the crunch survives. Stir the jar first and spoon up both the solids and the oil. Xilli's product page suggests eggs, vegetables, dumplings, fried rice and even pizza. The same logic extends anywhere a little fat, smoke and crunch would help:

Fried or scrambled eggs on a warm tortilla.
Roasted vegetables, especially squash, cauliflower and carrots.
Grilled meat, chicken or fish, spooned on just before serving.
A bowl of beans, rice or a brothy soup, swirled in at the table.
Avocado toast, or sliced avocado with salt and lime.
Plain yogurt or sour cream, stirred into a quick dip.

Because the chile and nuts have already been fried, salsa macha needs no more cooking. A spoonful in a hot pan at the last minute, tossed with noodles or vegetables, is about as far as it needs to go.

How to use chipotles in adobo

Chipotles in adobo do their best work inside a dish. One pod, chopped fine with a spoonful of its sauce, brings smoke and heat to a pot of beans, a tomato sauce, a braise or a marinade. Blended with mayonnaise, sour cream or butter, it becomes a smoky spread for sandwiches, corn or grilled meat. Because Xilli's page calls them supremely spicy, start with a little and add more after tasting. For a sense of where chiles sit on the heat scale and how heat is measured, see the hot sauce guide.

Where a jarred hot salsa fits

Salsa macha and chipotles in adobo both start with dried chile. A ready-to-eat jarred salsa does a different job: it goes straight from the jar to the plate. Big Cock Ranch's Hot Sh*t salsa (shop Big Cock Ranch Hot Salsa) is one, a hot salsa its product page describes as "a salsa you can actually enjoy." Kept side by side, the three jars cover three different jobs: one to eat straight from the jar, one to spoon on for crunch, and one to cook with. The full range is in the salsas collection.

The point of oil

A salsa does not have to be fresh to be lively. Salsa macha dries the chile, sometimes smokes it, then fries it in oil with nuts and seeds, and the result keeps for months in the refrigerator. The chipotle in adobo makes the same trade with smoke and a seasoned sauce, holding a jalapeño's flavor long after picking. Drying turns a chile into a more intense, more complex version of itself, so preserving it costs nothing in flavor. It is where much of the flavor comes from, and it shows best on something simple: an egg, a tortilla, a bowl of beans.