Traditional Tamales (Pork)

These are so good and well while the time they take to prepare. If you steam on top of your stove use medium heat & watch closely. Next time I'm going to make an extra cup of the Red Chili Sauce to top each tamale with a tsp or so before serving. These were so good and Karen, thanks for all the help!!

21 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

Delicious! These are a lot of work, but the end result is sooooo good! I froze them individually in foil, and then packaged them in freezer bags so that I can take them out as needed and microwave them. I did not change the recipe at all, as this is the first time I've made tamales. Thanks for a great recipe, Karen! :o)

16 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

My daughter and her boyfriend came to our house last sunday. We spent the afternoon making tamales (150). We had a great time. The tamales were excellent! Best I have ever had. We made half of them with chicken and the other half pork.I used Thai peppers grown by a freind of mine (quite spicy) they were excellent. I didnt understand the direction of using 15 large peppers. How big is a large pepper? So I used 30 Thais per batch. Thank you for a great recipe and a lovely afternoon.

6 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

This is Excellent! I've made beef tamales before but never pork. I really thought these are wonderful! Thank You So Much!

5 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

I made these tamales along with chicken and beef before Christmas and these were our favorite. Thanks Karen, good basic recipe I will use again and again. As others have said, a lot work but what tamales aren't.

5 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

Wow! This one is WORTH the work! Thanks

5 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

Karen, have your ears been buring today?! I got so many compliments on these and I kept telling everyone about this lady in CO named Karen whose recipe they were enjoying. Great tamales. I didn't get quite 50 out of the masa harina mixture, but I do have the filling left over so I will make more. Also, my bag of husks said to soak for a minimum of 2 hours, so I soaked mine longer than the recipe suggested. I used my pasta insert in my stock pot for a steamer and it worked great! I will make these again.

5 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

I have been looking for a tamale recipe just like my grandpa used to make. This is IT! Thanks so much for posting it.I can't wait to try it.

5 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

I've made this recipe twice and both times the tamales have turned out AMAZING! The first time, I followed the directions exactly and used the recommended tamale sauce, and it was really good. I ended up freezing a bunch of tamales and steamed them again to make a quick dinner. I used canned enchilada sauce each time I did this.

The second time, I didn't want to take the time to make the tamale sauce, so I used 2 10oz cans of mild enchilada sauce and 1 10z can of hot enchilada sauce. Turned out very good!

I love these tamales and the recipe is pretty easy, especially the second time!

2 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

I have been making tamales for years with my Tamale machine(tio carlos tamale king of Ft. Worth). A little hint to make steaming your tamales a breeze: Stack 6 tamales on a square sheet of aluminum foil(3-2-1)laying all 6 in the same direction. Roll up both sides of foil and fold down to the tamales and then fold ends. Remember to fold one end a different direction(either out or in) than the other to mark which end has the open top of the tamales. Lay in steamer with tops up in the foil and fill steamer. This technique keeps the tamales intact and dry during steaming, plus they are ready for the fridge or freezer.

2 people found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

Just made this recipe yesterday. It is great, authenic, delicious.
I have been looking for a good recipe for years but now that search is over. I made it exactly like the recipe here. I may play with it someday but for now it is by far the best I have ever had. I have eaten many tamales and these are number 1 in my book. Oh I used the sauce recommended too. I made it just like the recipe called for and it was wonderful. Actually it makes the whole recipe without that sauce you don't have much so use that too.

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

These were very good. I made the meat in a slow cooker the day before and finished them the next afternoon. It was a bit of work to wrap so many, but it is worth the effort. My family says I have to make these again.

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

I had never made tamales before. These were absolutely fabulous...well worth the time and effort! Thanks for sharing what will now be a staple in our house!

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

My husband and I decided that we would make tamales for something different to do on date night...wow! We actually impressed ourselves with these!! I thought we would share all of the extras since the batch was so big, but they are too good not to eat ourselves!!

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

Fabulous. Tastes just like the ones I get (when I'm lucky) from a neighbor family from Mexico. I'm not a master by any means, but all my work was worth it. Thanks, Karen.

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

My husband and I bought some really bland tamales. So I decided we should give tamale making a try. We will NEVER buy tamales again. These are so delicious! His mom has been in the tamale business for 20 years and these he says are way better. Thank you so much for sharing! I recommend making the meat and chili sauce one day and masa and rolling tamales the next.UMMMM! UMMMMM! GOOD!!

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

I'm going to say it.... are you ready? THIS IS THE BEST RECIPE ON ZAAR!!!!! I am so darn happy to have made tamales and the fact that they are melt in your mouth delicious is a total bonus. The Hutchinson family now has a new tradition--homemade tamales just like we get in Costa Rica for Christmas! I used every drop of masa and meat and made 38 tamales. THANK YOU!!!

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

These came out wonderful! I enjoyed the class in the forums too! I followed Muffin Goddess' advise and used ice-cream scoops to measure out the masa. Everyone loved these

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

Wow, I can't believe that I forgot to review this before now! Anyway, I have made these two times, once entirely by hand (oof!), once with my new Xmas toy (Kitchenaid Artisan stand mixer, yay!). Although they came out pretty good by hand, I definitely recommend using an appliance for best results with the masa, both for ease of preparation and texture of the masa. The tamales that I made using the mixer were 10 times better than the hand ones, per DH. I added one large black olive to each tamale when wrapping (supposed to be a good luck thing?), and I also forgot to measure out 4 cups of the red chile sauce and dumped the whole batch into the pork, which I find that I actually prefer. Another thing that made them better the second time around was that I referred to Alice Guadalupe Tapp's "Tamales 101" for technique pointers (this is a great little cookbook for tamale lovers, and it offers a lot of technique along with a bunch of recipes for all kinds of tamales). Of course, I didn't need the recipe for red chile pork tamales because I already had this one, I just needed a few diagrams and pointers for assembly and such. Oh, and I used two different sized cookie scoops to portion out the masa and filling for each tamale, which quickened things up quite a bit, I think. As further testimony to how good these are, only 1.5 dozen of the 5.5 dozen tamales I made actually made it into the freezer (and I think that DH ate all but 8 of the ones that didn't make it to the freezer, not in one sitting though! LOL). I will definitely make these again (maybe just for holidays though, because of labor-intensiveness). Thanks for posting!

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account

I don't know why people say it takes days to make tamales...but it does take awhile spreading the masa in the corn husks. I loved this recipe and I will never buy tamales again. However I did use a different sauce recipe (straight from a Mexican friend)...You take 3 or 4 dried ancho peppers, boil them back to life, then take out the seeds and stem, throw them in the blender, add salt, pepper and dried oregano. Add water to the mix until you get the desired thickness. It was way easier than I thought!

1 person found this review Helpful. You can only vote others' reviews helpful or not helpful... Was this review helpful to you? Yes | No We don't know who you are. Sign in or create an account