Inside Sazón: Recipes, Cooking Classes, and Stories from Mexico

Your front-row seat and backstage pass to the Mexican kitchen.

Sazón has grown a lot since I started it, and you may not know everything that’s waiting for you here. So I wanted to put it all in one place for you.

Inside Sazón, you’ll find the food I actually cook and eat: sweet potato and chorizo hash tacos, soups for cold weeknights, mole negro, pipián, fideo, tamales, buñuelos, pan de muerto, chorizo verde, suadero, huaraches, fish tacos, shrimp tostadas, cold ramen, milanesa, beans, mangonada chicken skewers, aguas frescas, veggie tacos, lonches, carne asada salad, and whatever else I am hungry for.

But the recipes are only the beginning.

Along the way, I share the history behind the dishes, the places that inspire them, and the techniques, ingredients, seasoning, texture, and timing that help you cook them with confidence and understand how they are made in Mexico.

I give you ingredient notes, substitutions, flavor cues, serving ideas, troubleshooting, and clear guardrails so you know what’s important, what to change or improvise, and how to make each recipe your own.

How the Recipes Are Organized

I’ve organized every Sazón recipe into one of three categories: Weeknights, Projects, and Traditions.

Weeknights — are fast and easy, “it shouldn’t taste this good” dinners you can pull off on a Wednesday night.

Projects — are the recipes worth slowing down for: tortillas, moles, buñuelos, barbacoa, apple fritters, and birria.

Traditions — are the seasonal dishes: Chiles en Nogada for September, pan de muerto for Día de Muertos, tamales for December, buñuelos for New Year’s, Cuaresma dishes for Lent, and Mexican holiday drinks.

Use my recipes as a place to start. I want you to riff, adjust, taste, and make the dish your own. That is your sazón.

Recipe Index

Who Sazón Is For?

For people who love Mexican food and want to get closer to it.

Closer to the ingredients. Closer to the techniques. Closer to the markets, taquerías, panaderías, fondas, home kitchens, street stands, beaches, highways, holidays, and everyday meals that shape the way people cook and eat in Mexico.

It’s for home cooks who want recipes that work and want to understand why they work.

It’s for people who want to make better tacos, better salsas, better tamales, better beans, better weeknight dinners, and better food for the people they love.

It is for people who want Mexican cooking to feel less intimidating, more joyful, more flexible, and more fun, whether they are cooking for themselves or with family and friends.

Free to Read. Paid When You Want the Recipes.

Paid subscribers get everything Sazón offers: every new weekly recipe, the complete archive of more than 190 recipes, cooking guides, and monthly live, online cooking classes. Your subscription also includes the class recipes, video replays, Q&A, and upcoming city guides as they publish, beginning with Mexico City and Mazatlán.

If you are already a paid subscriber, thank you. All of this is already included in your subscription.

Free subscribers receive the weekly Sazón newsletter, including stories, essays, guides, cooking ideas, and dispatches from my kitchen in Mazatlán. You’ll also have access to the 100 recipes from the archive that are always free to everyone, 20% off live online cooking classes, and the five free Salsa School guides: salsa roja, salsa verde, guacamole, salsa macha, and hot sauce. Each guide is divided into multiple parts so you can dive deeper into the recipes, origins, history, troubleshooting, and ways to make each one your own.

A paid subscription is $50 a year and gives you full access to the entire archive, the monthly live classes, and everything new I publish throughout the year.

Free is where you read along. Paid is when you want it all.

Cook With Me!

Every month, I teach a live online cooking class focused on one dish, ingredient, or holiday. Some people join because they’ve never made it before and want someone to walk them through it. Others have tried it and want to understand what went wrong and what to do differently next time.

As I cook, I’ll explain the history behind the dish, what each ingredient contributes, how cooking changes it, and the little cues that let you know you’ve completed each step successfully, whether that means a deep golden color, a nutty aroma, or the sound of seeds beginning to pop.

The classes are live and I want you to feel like you’re in my kitchen with me, watching, talking, and asking questions as they come up.

You can ask what ingredients to buy, what to substitute, which pan to use, how hot it should be, and how to adjust the salt, acid, sweetness, color, or consistency when they’re not quite right.

You can cook along with me or just watch, ask questions, and make the recipe later with the video replay. The replay is yours to watch to as often as you want, you can pause, rewind, and repeat any technique again and again until it makes sense.

“I loved the recipe and the background on the food!”

-Amanda M.

“You are an expert teacher!!”

-Andrew K.

“I’ve successfully made mole while all this was playing out… amazing class! And the mole [tastes] great.”

-Jimmy M.

The monthly class, recipe, video replay, and Q&A are included with every paid subscription. Free subscribers save 20% on individual class tickets.

Rick's Cooking School

I’m keeping this post pinned to the Sazón homepage so you can come back anytime you want to browse the recipes, find the next cooking class, or remind yourself what your subscription includes.

PS: Upgrade to a paid subscriber of Sazón to join the live cooking class or save 20%, as a free subscriber.