For Tacos That Taste Straight Out Of A Mexican Restaurant, Avoid This Common Mistake

There's a magic about tacos in a Mexican restaurant. Part of it is having margaritas hand-delivered and tableside guacamole made fresh before your eyes. But the tacos themselves have their own mojo. They're full of flavor and have a certain pizzaz that's hard to beat — even if you like a dressed-down Mexican street-style taco with only onions and cilantro for toppings. There's something about those authentic tacos that come from Mexican restaurants that's hard to recreate at home. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try, though, and there's one easy mistake you can avoid to make taco night taste more authentic.

Tasting Table got this secret straight from James Beard Award Winner Rick Martinez, and it's the best way to avoid boring tacos at the dinner table. Martinez told Tasting Table the secret is to avoid using jarred salsa on your tacos and make your own instead. This one trick not only opens the door for fresher, more flavorful ingredients, but it allows you to tailor your salsa ingredients to whatever kind of tacos you're making. Martinez told Tasting Table: "It [the type of salsa] really just depends on what meat I'm serving. If I know I'm going to have something that's a little more complex in flavor like a birria or barbacoa, I need to make the salsas maybe a little less flamboyant."

Tailoring your salsa to whatever style of tacos you're making is an art. An ultra-creamy salsa verde works wonderfully of you're making your own tacos al pastor, but if you might want to go with tomato-based pico de gallo if you're making a less complex recipe, like tacos with your own Taco Bell copycat ground beef. Chicken tacos, on the other hand, are versatile and can really shine when paired with pico de gallo, guacamole, creamy salsas, or red salsas.

Unexpected ingredients, like peach salsa on chicken tacos or cranberry salsa on carne asada tacos, are one of the fun parts of making your own salsa for homemade salsa night. You can technically make salsa with whatever ingredients you have, so get creative. With Martinez' rule about balancing out the flavors of the taco with the salsa, you'll be able to create a spread of authentic tacos for your next family dinner that are closer to what you'll find at a Mexican restaurant that ever before.

Static Media owns and operates The Takeout and Tasting Table.