When it’s taco night at our house, I have to be sure I have some taco sauce in the house too. Hubby gets all sad if I set out a nice spread of taco meat and toppings but no sauce. “What, no taco sauce?” he’ll say and look mournfully around hoping it will appear by magic. Who would serve tacos without first making sure there was some taco sauce in the house? Shame on me.
So this easy homemade taco sauce recipe has been a nice way for me to be able to keep taco sauce on hand and not spend as much money as I would if I was always grabbing the bottle of Ortega Taco Sauce at the store and throwing it in my grocery cart.
This recipe uses tomato sauce as the base, thinned a little bit with water, with vinegar for some tartness and just a little bit of sugar to offset it. Then you mix in a nice assortment of spices and you’re homemade taco sauce is ready to go. Pretty simple!
This recipe is my own adaptation of various homemade taco sauce recipes I came across. Hungry Son commented that it needed a little lemon or something (which was pretty perceptive of him as the Ortega ingredient labels says Citric Acid which can give a product a lemon citrus taste). So with the addition of lemon pepper to the ingredient list, I think we’ve come pretty close to a good clone for our favorite taco sauce.
HOMEMADE TACO SAUCE
(click here for printable recipe)
8 oz can of tomato sauce
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne (ground red pepper)
1/2 tsp lemon pepper seasoning
Combine all ingredients and put in jar or other storage container. Keep in the refrigerator. Best if able to set for a few hours before using to let the flavors mingle.
This post is linked to Thrifty Home Penny Pinching Party Wednesday and Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family
I'm Bev and I love to share ideas for living a more creative and resourceful lifestyle with homemade alternatives we can make for ourselves. 
The Stocked Kitchen: One Grocery List . . Endless Recipes
Interesting. I make my own taco flavoring for meat (i bought one of the packets, used it, and kept it for the ingredient list). That works well. I do my own seasoning salt, too. But i'd never thought of making the sauce from a bottle. My hubby prefers the chipotle sauce of some brand, that specific one, nothing else will substitute. But it might be interesting to try! Thank you.
This is great. I already use Amy Daczyn's recipe for the taco seasoning this is awesome….
I also make my own salsa, which you probably already do also, tomatoes (canned or fresh), garlic, cumin, salt, cilantro and a little olive oil if you have some.
This is so close to ortega sauce that I can't really tell the difference. Big thanks. Stores around here stopped selling ortega, and I've tried every other taco sauce maker on the shelf, and none of them came close to replacing the ortega. So in short you helped out huge.
So glad my Google search for homemade Ortega taco sauce led me here
I’m trying to eat more organic, less GMO foods, and that’s hard to do unless you make things like this yourself.
Can’t wait to try this!
That’s definitely on of the advantages of homemade items. You have so much more control and knowledge about what’s in it. I hope you enjoy the taco sauce!
How long will this keep in the fridge?
I have kept this for several months in the refrigerator with no problem. I have never tried keeping it longer than that as by then it is used up. Based on that, my experience is that it will keep for at least 3 to 4 months.
Until I found this recipe post, I would make tacos and then remember that we were out of sauce. Which is no surprise here, the way they pour it on their tacos. My family loves this, and I’m not even worried about how long it will last as it may never even make it to the fridge. Thank you!
Thank you so much for the recipe on tacos. I almost had my supper ready & NO TACO SAUCE ! I am gonna try to fix yours except I don’t have any tomato sauce. I have stewed – whole & diced – I wish I knew what you would do . Thank You anyway.
I would probably have put my stewed tomatoes in the food processor to see if I could turn them into sauce