My mother’s excellent recipe for Mexican chorizo (spicy sausage) with scrambled eggs.
Growing up, we had some of the standard American foods for breakfast—cream o’ wheat, oatmeal, waffles, fried eggs, pancakes (no sugar coated cereals in this household!)—and a couple things I never saw in any of my friends’ homes—huevos, and my favorite chorizo with eggs.
My mother is hispanic by ancestry and looks, and even though she doesn’t speak a drop of Spanish she still cooks what she was taught by her mother, grandmother and relatives, growing up in Tucson, Arizona.
Thus we alone on our block had chorizo, or Mexican sausage scrambled up with eggs. I didn’t even know that chorizo was the name of the sausage and not the dish until I was in my twenties.
What is chorizo?
A spicy pork sausage. While the Spanish version is usually spiced with paprika and garlic, Mexican chorizo is spiced with chile peppers.
I’ve seen chorizo served in Mexican restaurants most often as a side sausage, like bacon. We cook ours up with the eggs and add some raisins as well, the sweetness of which provides some balance to the spicy chile in the chorizo.
If you can’t find Mexican chorizo
Chorizo may not be available where you are. We have a simple recipe for chorizo that can be made in the home.
Grind one pound of pork, not too fine. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon red chile powder; mash 1 large clove of garlic very thoroughly with 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, add to the meat and mix well.
Chorizo and Eggs Recipe
- Prep time: 10 minutes
- Cook time: 10 minutes
- Yield: Serves 2 to 3
Ingredients
- Extra virgin olive oil or bacon fat
- 1/3 cup chopped onions (green, red, or yellow onions) optional
- 1/4 pound of Mexican chorizo sausage, removed from sausage casing
- 3 tablespoons raisins – soaked in hot water for 10 minutes and drained
- 5 to 6 eggs
- Salt
- Tortillas – optional
- Cilantro – optional
Chorizo sausage from Whole Foods. Whole Foods has a standard recipe and spices for making chorizo sausage and may make some up for you upon request if you don’t see it displayed.
Method
1 Cook the onions: Heat a large skillet on medium high heat. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil or bacon fat in the pan. Add the chopped onions (optional) and cook until softened.
2 Add the chorizo and raisins: Once softened, move the onions to the side of the pan and add clumps of chorizo into the pan. Use a wooden spatula to break up the pieces of sausage. Add the raisins.
Stir until the sausage is cooked through, though not necessarily browned. If you are not using lean chorizo, drain the excess fat from the pan before proceeding.
If you are not using lean chorizo, you may want to cook the chorizo first, draining the excess fat, then remove to a plate while you cook the onions in the remaining fat. We usually cook with lean chorizo, so excess fat isn’t an issue.
3 Add the eggs: Crack the eggs one at a time, into the pan. Break the yolks and stir the eggs into the sausage. Add a light sprinkling of salt.
Stir constantly until the eggs begin to set, but are still moist. Remove from heat.
Serve immediately with a side of warmed corn tortillas and cilantro as a garnish.
