Papas con chorizo, or potatoes with Mexican chorizo, is a perfectly lovely answer to what to have any time of day. If having it for breakfast, the authors suggest scrambling it with eggs and rolling it up in a warm flour tortilla. If papas con chorizo is what they crave for dinner, they make gorditas. But you can have them any which way you please. Just have them.–Renee Schettler Rossi

*How to find the right cheese for this recipe

Arguably the most difficult thing about this potatoes with Mexican chorizo recipe is sourcing the queso quesadilla cheese. What’s queso quesadilla cheese, you ask? It’s redundant, for one thing, seeing as “queso” means “cheese” in Spanish. It’s also a rich, creamy, mild cheese that melts ridiculously easily and is swell when you crave something melty and ooey and gooey, as in the cheese’s namesake quesadilla—or this I-can’t-believe-it’s-so-simple, can’t-stop-cramming-it-in-my-mouth potatoes with Mexican chorizo.

Potatoes with Mexican chorizo tucked inside tortillas with a glass of beer on the side.

Potatoes With Mexican Chorizo

5 / 5 votes
Potatoes with Mexican chorizo is a traditional recipe that’s awesome any time of day—especially with eggs. Our rendition of the classic is easy as well as awesome.
David Leite
CourseBreakfast
CuisineMexican
Servings8 servings
Calories197 kcal
Prep Time25 minutes
Cook Time25 minutes
Total Time50 minutes

Ingredients 

  • 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
  • 5 small (about 2lbs) russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, washed, peeled, and diced into roughly 1/4-inch (6-mm) cubes
  • 10 ounces store-bought or homemade Mexican (raw) chorizo, casings removed
  • 1 cup shredded queso quesadilla cheese*, (see *How to find the right cheese for this recipe above)

Instructions 

  • Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
  • Pour about 8 cups water into a large pot, add 1 1/2 tablespoons salt, and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes and cook over medium-high heat until almost but not quite tender, 8 to 15 minutes. (Be careful not to overcook the potatoes or they’ll turn to mush.) Drain the potatoes in a colander but don't rinse them.
  • While the potatoes are cooking, crumble the chorizo into a cast-iron skillet.
    If cooking the chorizo in the oven, cover with foil and place in the preheated oven until no trace of pink remains, 15 to 20 minutes. Check after 10 minutes to make sure the chorizo isn’t burning. You'll notice that the chorizo will release quite a lot of oil. You want to keep this rather than drain it off to help flavor the potatoes.
    If cooking the chorizo on the stovetop, simply place over medium or medium-high heat and cook, uncovered, until no trace of pink remains and the exterior is slightly crisp. You'll notice that the chorizo will release quite a lot of oil. You want to keep this to help flavor the potatoes.
  • Add the drained potatoes to the cooked chorizo along with salt to taste and gently stir to combine. Mind you, don't stir too much or the potatoes will turn to mush. Top with the shredded cheese, return the skillet to the oven, and bake, uncovered, just until the cheese melts, 5 to 7 minutes. Serve immediately.
Muy Bueno Cookbook

Adapted From

Muy Bueno

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Nutrition

Serving: 1 portionCalories: 197 kcalCarbohydrates: 1 gProtein: 13 gFat: 16 gSaturated Fat: 8 gCholesterol: 54 mgSodium: 1880 mgFiber: 1 gSugar: 1 g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Tried this recipe?Mention @leitesculinaria or tag #leitesculinaria!
Recipe © 2012 Yvette Sharpnack | Veronica Gonzalez | Evangelina Soza. Photo © 2012 Jeanine Thurston. All rights reserved.

Recipe Testers’ Reviews

This recipe is simple, versatile, and, best of all, delicious. These were great freshly made and better still as leftovers where they will rock your lunchbox. If anything, they’re better the next day.

I think the amount of water called for is just a bit low. I’d use a bit more water next time, and increase the salt to keep the same concentration. I didn’t have any issue with the chorizo scorching in the oven and cooked it for 20 minutes total. I used an 8 1/2-by-13-inch baking dish for this, and it was a pretty good size to use, as once you add the potatoes, you have a lot of food. I put it back in the oven for 8 minutes to melt the cheese.

They’d also be great for breakfast, topped with a fried egg. I’d probably omit the cheese for the breakfast serving. Number of servings? Not as easy to answer as you might think, as we had leftovers of these in different proportions. But we both had them as a side dish for dinner (2 servings), Moe had leftovers twice for lunch (2 more servings), I had them once for breakfast (1 more serving), and Moe and I each had a tiny portion as a snack (1/2 serving each?). That comes to 6 servings as a side dish.

Crazy easy recipe alert.

I only have a few insights into this recipe that’d make it a little bit better. Mind you, 1/4-inch cubed potatoes cook very quickly, so maybe start checking them for doneness around the 8-minute mark. I made the chorizo in the oven in a cast-iron casserole, which was pretty simple.

Once the chorizo and potatoes were mixed together, I reused the foil cover to wrap my tortillas and set those in the oven along with the casserole. It took around 4 minutes to melt the cheese, and I was ready to tear into this killer dish. A few poached eggs, and this was a very satisfying breakfast for dinner.

Delicious! I filled warmed flour tortillas with the potatoes and Mexican chorizo for lunch, and the leftovers were fabulous with a fried egg for breakfast. I love the idea of a huge bowl of this set in the center of the table for breakfast, lunch, or dinner—served with tortillas and, as sacrilegious as this sounds, sour cream and pico de gallo.

This time, since I was just cooking for myself, I cut the recipe down by 1/5. I used 1 russet potato (it was 15 ounces), 2 ounces chorizo, and about 1/4 cup cheese. The chorizo took about 12 minutes to cook in the oven (by the way, genius cooking method). I folded in the waiting potatoes, topped with cheese, and popped the casserole dish back into the oven for about 2 minutes to melt the cheese.

And as much as you want to, don’t blot the lovely orange fat rendered from the chorizo. It’ll beautifully infuse the potatoes with color and flavor. I chose not to season with the additional salt; it didn’t need it. I got 2 very hardy or 3 normal servings from 1/5 the recipe.

This potatoes with Mexican chorizo recipe, with just 4 ingredients, is really more of a guide to a creating a finished product than a recipe. You can easily adjust the ingredients using the proportions that you want to tailor the dish to your taste.

I had a bag of red potatoes, and used 1 pound and 10 ounces, as I was making this for 2 people. I really like Mexican chorizo, so I used 1 pound of that. I figured that we’d have a good breakfast as well as leftovers for lunch the next day. I was surprised that the chorizo was cooked in the oven, but I’ll be using that technique again; it worked wonderfully. I checked the chorizo after it’d been in the oven for 10 minutes. There was a lot of liquid in the cast-iron pan. Most of it was fat, but there also appeared to be some water. I stirred the liquid into the chorizo, and put it back into the oven without the foil, for 5 more minutes. The chorizo was cooked through at the 15-minute mark.

After reading the recipe, I’d been a bit disappointed that the potatoes wouldn’t be crisped up. While the chorizo was cooking in the oven, I took half the potatoes and crisped them up in another cast-iron skillet in some bacon fat. (There are times when you just can’t have too much pork fat.) When I added the potatoes to the chorizo I stirred the crispy potatoes into one-half of the pan, and the rest of the potatoes into the other side of the pan, curious to see if that made a difference. It didn’t. There was no need for that extra step. The potatoes were soft and succulent.

It took only 2 1/2 to 3 minutes for the grated cheese to melt over the chorizo and potatoes. I was surprised at just how much we liked this dish. So much so that I really wished that I’d made a heck of a lot more. We served this with eggs sunny-side up draped over the top. Poached would’ve been wonderful also. Do yourself a favor and do the same. The yolk running into the spicy chorizo and flavorful potatoes was icing on the cake.

I can’t wait to make this again. The recipe is fantastic, with the bonus of being really easy to make. I’m planning on making it again next weekend if I can wait that long.

This is a very simple and adaptable recipe. You can have it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I love potatoes with Mexican chorizo for breakfast with eggs rolled up in a tortilla. But today I made it for dinner and served it with a fried egg, corn bread, and green salad. It was a very comforting, great-tasting meal. Everybody loved it.

I used about 1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes and fried the chorizo in a wide pan, which worked just fine. No mess at all. I think it’s overkill to use the oven (though you have to heat the oven anyway for the last step, so I guess you could fry the chorizo in the oven). I let the potatoes cool completely before adding them to the chorizo. In my experience from making bratkartoffeln (German-fried potatoes) and rösti (Swiss-fried potatoes), it works far better to use cold potatoes. Warm and not set potatoes tend to break up and stick to the pan.

I used Cotija cheese, which worked great, and baked it in the 350°F oven for 10 minutes. During that time I fried the eggs and assembled the salad. It took me 43 minutes to complete the entire dish, not counting the cooling time for the potatoes.

A truly easy and yummy recipe—absolutely a keeper. I used a high-quality chorizo, made by my son’s girlfriend’s dad. When using cheap chorizo, you might want to dump some of the rendered grease out.

Sausage and potatoes mixed together and topped with cheese…how can this be a bad thing? This potatoes with Mexican chorizo recipe was quick to throw together and very flavorful.

Another pro was the beautiful color that the chorizo gave the potatoes when mixed together. I opted to cook the chorizo in a frying pan on the stovetop, and it didn’t produce a lot of oil, so I added a little olive oil to enhance the chorizo oil goodness. I also added a few chopped scallions for a touch of green.

This will be a go-to recipe for me, especially when I want an easy side that makes it look like I spent extra time in the kitchen to produce something extra special!

This is a very tasty dish.  This recipe works very well as written, but in the future, I’ll cook the chorizo in the cast-iron skillet on the stovetop to get it browner and crisper. I turned the oven off and left the skillet in the oven for 5 minutes to melt the queso.

You could use this dish as a side or an entrée. This would work well for any meal with any number of additions or variations (green chiles, eggs, etc.). I simply crisped a couple corn tortillas in a hot skillet and spooned this over the top.

Nothing more was needed. The flavor of the corn with the chorizo, potato, and queso was wonderful. I used about 1 1/2 pounds potatoes.

Three things stick out in this recipe that should be adhered to:

1. Make sure you get a 1/4-inch dice on the potatoes, especially if you want to eat this with tortilla chips later

2. Check the potatoes after 10 minutes, if not sooner. It won’t take long to cook potatoes diced that small (I used 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes)

3. I’ll probably never cook chorizo on top of the stove again—it’s so much less messy in the oven. If you use a cast-iron skillet, after you gently mix in the potatoes and melt the cheese (watch closely, as this only took about 2 minutes), you can serve it in the pan for a nice rustic look.

I took this dish to a brunch and it was a huge hit! The recipe works well as written.

I cooked the chorizo in a skillet on the stovetop over low heat so it didn’t make a mess, as I had something sweet baking in the oven. After I combined the potatoes and the chorizo, I topped it with the cheese and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes.

I’d definitely make this again.

This was delicious! The combination of the spicy chorizo and creamy cheese was very satisfying. I also really liked the way the spice and oil from the chorizo coated the potatoes. Overall, a great addition to a breakfast burrito.

My 5 russet potatoes were just over 2 pounds and took 15 minutes to cook. The one complaint I have is about the cooking time for the chorizo. Mine wasn’t fully cooked in 20 minutes and needed an extra 5 minutes. I also think that onion would be a nice addition.

This made for a great breakfast this morning. I cut the recipe in half because there were only 2 of us, and it made about 5 servings.

I used 3 russet potatoes, weighing about 1 1/2 pounds total. I also cut some prep time by just scrubbing the potatoes well and leaving the skin on because I like them that way—and maybe because I’m a tad lazy. The potatoes were tender after about 8 minutes in the water.

I liked cooking the chorizo in the oven, as it didn’t require any babysitting and was ready by the time the potatoes were done. This was the first time I’d used quesadilla cheese, and I really liked the flavor. I put the casserole back in the oven for about 8 minutes to melt the cheese.

It was a hit with the hubs, who liked the hot chorizo I used. I served it with just eggs and tortillas for him, but because I love kale and eat it with everything, I added kale to my burrito and felt it was a nice complement to the well-seasoned chorizo.

My only critique is to go easy on the salt once the potatoes and sausage are combined, as your chorizo may be salty enough. Overall, an easy, mostly hands-off dish that’s perfect for a lazy weekend morning!

I prepared this recipe for dinner. I used about 2 pounds russet potatoes. Dicing them into 1/4-inch cubes was the most time-consuming part of this recipe. The chorizo was a bit sticky, so the instructions to “crumble” it weren’t appropriate.

Once the potatoes were added to the chorizo and topped with cheese, it took about 10 minutes before the cheese was melted and the dish was ready to eat.

My tasters enjoyed the flavors and found this a delicious change of pace. The recipe is so easy to prepare, and the results are so flavorful that this’ll become a staple in our house. I’m anxious to try it again with some scrambled eggs for breakfast burritos.

Not only is this a delicious, satisfying dish, but it’s also quick. Because it’s so simple, it’s the type of dish that can be put together any time of the day. I could add an egg and have a great breakfast dish. If I served it alongside a salad, dinner would be covered.

Even the dicing of the potatoes (mine weighed in at 1 2/3 pounds) was a speedy process. After the potatoes and chorizo cooked in the oven for 20 minutes, it only took an additional 7 for the cheese to melt. I was unable to find queso quesadilla cheese, so I used a Ranchero queso fresco that melted beautifully on the potatoes. Everyone loved it!

A traditional papas that was quick to fix and pleasing to the family. Would be great the next morning with a couple eggs added to it for breakfast burritos.

I used 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes. Due to the size of the dice, my potatoes only needed 10 minutes to cook, which was perfect, as they held together when I was stirring later. I cooked my chorizo in the oven, and it took all 20 minutes (when I checked at 10 minutes, it was still very raw). It took 7 minutes for the cheese to melt in a 350°F oven.




About David Leite

I count myself lucky to have received three James Beard Awards for my writing as well as for Leite’s Culinaria. My work has also appeared in The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Yankee, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and more.


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14 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Amazing! I used pork chorizo, I fried my potatoes with very little oil added diced onion, garlic powder, black pepper & salt. I used ranchero queso fresco and ate them with warmed corn tortillas. Thank you so much. P.S. I added finely shredded cabbage it added great pop of flavor and an awesome crunch…

    1. Nice suggestions, Lisa! I actually ate this last night too and was thinking that it would probably be really good with a little onion and frying the potatoes. I’m so glad you enjoyed them. I will definitely have to try with the cabbage next time.