If you’re a fan of both Mexican food and trying new things, chances are you’ve heard of New Mexican cuisine. But do you really know what it is? Foodies from around the world have been coming to New Mexico to try the unique takes on already existing foods that can only be found there. So, today we hope to help you understand this part of the foodie world by explaining New Mexican food. We hope you enjoy it.
What exactly is New Mexican food?
This question could be a bit complicated to answer, as there are no hard rules which define New Mexican cuisine. The best we can do is compare it to authentic dishes from Mexico, which this new cuisine takes to another level. The main difference, of course, comes down to ingredients. While most of the dishes are made with a lot of the same elements, there are slight differences that give New Mexican variants a unique taste. Many foodies believe that New Mexican cooking is a mix of Mexican and Pueblo cooking. Others think it has Spanish and Native American influences. There are also some parts of Tex-Mex cooking. The truth is, New Mexican cooking is a mix of all of them. It falls somewhere in between all of the different inspirations. This offers a truly unique experience.
New Mexican ingredients
As mentioned before, New Mexican cuisine is mainly defined by its ingredients. The main ingredient in this is taken from Pueblo cooking: chilis, with most of them being green chilis. Green chiles are typically roasted over a fire and used in most dishes directly or made into a sauce that is poured over burritos, enchiladas, and sopapillas. They’re additionally fried into Rellenos. Another staple of New Mexican cooking is using vegetables more often than in traditional Mexican food. Also, whole corn kernels, ground meat, lots of yellow cheese, and black beans. And while these are used in standard Mexican kitchens as well, New Mexican cooks use them a lot more. The experts from Pro-Move Logistics note that lots of young chefs have been moving to New Mexico to learn about New Mexican food.
Santa Fe, the home of New Mexican cooking
No one can say where it started, but Santa Fe has the highest number of New Mexican-style restaurants in the entire state. So, if you’re looking to try out a new style of food and maybe learn how to spice up some Mexican-inspired dishes, planning a trip to Santa Fe is probably in order. The city has a couple of notable restaurants to visit. If you want to try some of the best New Mexican cuisine available, be sure to stop by The Shed. Here, a lot of the food is based on three crops grown by the Pueblos, namely beans, squash, and corn, which they incorporate with chilis ground in-house. Then you can compare this to traditional Mexican cooking at the Sazon. This restaurant brought some of the best traditional Mexican food into Santa Fe and is widely loved by the city’s populace.
Best enjoyed with beautiful nature
Especially if you tour Santa Fe, you will find that the best way to enjoy New Mexican cooking is along with some beautiful nature. Some restaurants and B&Bs in Santa Fe lean into this, placing themselves inside beautiful gardens for their guests to enjoy. But this isn’t a trend just in Santa Fe. If you like to enjoy the natural wonders while exploring the culinary side of things, New Mexico, in general, won’t leave you disappointed. While it’s true that the best wonders aren’t connected to food in any way, they are worth the visit on their own. And they might give you a spark of inspiration to come up with something new in the kitchen. After all, the greatest moments of inspiration often come when we’re out and about enjoying ourselves. So why not give New Mexico’s most beautiful places for nature lovers a shot?
An expanding list of recipes
New Mexican cooking is an exciting mix of a lot of different cuisines. This makes it somewhat experimental, and this can be seen in the fact that, to this day, the list of recipes unique to New Mexican kitchens is still expanding. So, if you want to discover new kinds of recipes for yourself, it is worth your time to look into the New Mexican cooking style. If you’ve never been to New Mexico, it is safe to say that discovering a new take on a lot of different foods is incredibly easy. There are restaurants wherever you go that can offer fresh takes on traditional and contemporary things. The best part of New Mexican cuisine is that it can also build off of itself, experimenting with dishes that are already fairly experimental.
Final thoughts on New Mexican food
New Mexican cuisine is a fascinating and experimental mix of many different types of cooking. This unique take on food makes it worth looking into and sampling yourself. This is the main reason why foodies worldwide have been very interested in coming to New Mexico. Besides enjoying a new take on food, it is an excellent way for them to expand their own repertoires. We hope you found this explanation of what New Mexican food is helpful, and we wish you a memorable trip if you decide to visit New Mexico yourself.
Curious about what New Mexican food is? Read this article now and learn about a fresh take on traditional Mexican food!
Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels
