10 Genius Ways To Use Tequila In Your Cooking

Tequila and other agave spirits like mezcal are great for crafting delicious cocktails and sipping straight or on the rocks. But if the only way you're enjoying tequila is in drinks, you're missing out. Why? Because tequila's smoky and complex tastes and aromas can add out-of-this-world flavor to your cooking, too. 

Mixto, blanco, and añejo tequilas or mezcals taste great in all sorts of foods. They add something extra to sweet, savory, and spicy dishes — particularly those with a Mexican or Southwestern flair. As a bartender and cookbook author, I love adding spirits like tequila to my cocktails and my cooking. It is something I do a lot, usually with spectacular results. From adding it to a spicy corn chowder to topping a traditional flan, these are some of my favorite ways to incorporate tequila and other agave spirits (including non-alcoholic agave spirits) into my cooking — and I think you'll love them, too.

Classic corn chowder is a perennial favorite — especially in late summer and early fall when freshly harvested corn is at its peak of tender sweetness. But even in the winter, you can make a delicious corn chowder using frozen or crisp-tender canned corn, and adding tequila and some extra heat takes it to the next level. One of my favorites is diablo corn chowder.

Sound good? Start with a corn chowder recipe that you can modify. Brown some pepper bacon or ground chorizo in a pot and add some onions and other aromatics. Cook to soften the vegetables and add a few tablespoons of flour to make a roux. Then, after cooking the flour for a few minutes, deglaze the pot with about ¼ cup of tequila. Next, add broth and any remaining ingredients except the corn and simmer. This is a great time to add extra heat for the diablo part — consider chopped chipotle chiles, a little cayenne, or whatever spicy ingredient you love. Finish with corn and heavy cream, and you're good to go. To add freshness, chop up some cilantro and add it just before serving.

Steak fajitas are fabulous by themselves, but creating a tequila marinade for the steak before you cook it takes it to the next level. Marinate the steak for eight hours or overnight, pat it dry, and then cook it in your sizzling pan with onions and peppers for a tasty Southwestern treat. 

There are all sorts of things you can put in your marinade. I like to pulse my marinade ingredients in a food processor to get it all chopped together before putting it in a zip-top bag with the steak. My marinade differs every time, but some ingredients I love to add include blanco or añejo tequila, lime juice and lime zest, chopped scallions (the green and the white parts), poblano or jalapeño peppers, chopped chipotle chiles canned in adobo (I just use the chiles and leave out the adobo), avocado oil, ground oregano, cilantro, chili powder or cayenne, ground cumin, ground coriander, and salt. Save a few tablespoons of the marinade to add to the fajitas at the very end of cooking to pump up the flavors even more.

Glazes can add so much to a ham, whether you're making yours from scratch using a pork shoulder or glazing a pre-cooked ham as you warm it up. The first time I made a tequila-jalapeño glaze for my ham, it was a total revelation. It was sweet, spicy, and mouthwateringly delicious. Of course, one of my magic ingredients was tequila, but the other was cola (I used Coke). 

To make it, you'll need a full-sugar cola — not a diet cola. Combine it with some lime juice and lime zest, brown sugar, mixto or blanco tequila, a few dashes of hot sauce, and chopped jalapeños. Simmer it on the stovetop until it's syrupy, remove any solids, and then brush it on your ham. Other ingredients you could add to this sweet and savory glaze include chopped mangoes, chili powder, and pineapple juice. The sweet, spicy, and savory combination brings out the smokiness in the ham.

If you like your homemade meatloaf with a sweet, savory, and possibly spicy glaze, adding a dash of tequila will take it to the next level. If you want to make it even tastier, add a few Southwestern flavors to the meatloaf itself, like ground oregano, chopped jalapeños, chili powder, and ground cumin. 

The glaze is easy to make. You'll need equal parts ketchup, liquid, and brown sugar. Make the liquid half mixto or blanco tequila and half apple cider vinegar. Then, add in some heat if you want it, like a little cayenne or a few dashes of hot sauce. Cook, stirring, on the stovetop until it simmers. Simmer until it thickens a little. Glaze your meatloaf before popping it in the oven, reserving some of the glaze to serve alongside the meatloaf as a condiment. Warm up the reserved glaze just before you serve your meatloaf.

Butter makes everything better, and tequila lime butter? Yes, please! I especially like it as a topping for fish or corn, but it can add a ton of flavor to steaks, potatoes, shrimp, cornbread, or anything else you like to eat with butter (I bet it makes broccoli taste fabulous). 

To make the butter, you'll need a stick or two of softened unsalted butter. Add it to a bowl along with a few teaspoons of añejo tequila, a pinch or two of salt, some chopped fresh cilantro, the finely grated zest of a lime, finely chopped scallions, and, if you're into it, some finely chopped jalapeño or chili peppers. Mix it all together and spoon it onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Roll the butter into a log, wrap it in the plastic, and refrigerate until it hardens. Then, unwrap and cut it into slices to use as a tasty tequila-flavored topping.

Tequila and flan are meant to be partners. The sweet, caramel flavors in añejo or mixto tequila combine beautifully with a sweet, creamy flan (especially an agave flan) and the bittersweet caramel syrup that coats the dessert. If you want, you can even incorporate a little tequila into the flan itself before you bake it, following the instructions for how to incorporate bourbon into flan. I'm all for doing both. 

Then, make a wet caramel, using a little añejo tequila in place of some of the water. The result is a more complex caramel topping. I also like to add flavors like prickly pear syrup to the tequila syrup to make the flan even more interesting and flavorful. You could even make a spicy tequila caramel by adding a pinch of cayenne or a few chopped chiles that you strain out before serving.

Tequila and tropical fruits have an affinity for one another — a take on the principle of if it grows together, it goes together. Maceration is simply a process in which you soak fruits in liquid to soften them and add flavor. 

You can use a mixto, blanco, or añejo tequila for this because all of them will add different flavors to the final product. You'll also need a little brown or white sugar — or maybe some agave syrup to reinforce the flavor profile — and some tropical fruits like chopped mangoes, pineapple, papayas, or guavas (or a mixture). It's also great with berries or chopped stone fruits like peaches and nectarines. Chop the chosen fruits in a bowl and mix in the tequila and sugar. You can add sweet spices like cinnamon or nutmeg if you want (or make it spicy with a little cayenne). Stick it in the fridge overnight, and then use it as a topping for ice cream, waffles, or whatever other sweet treat you desire

Speaking of sweet treats, bananas Foster is the ultimate boozy dessert. And while it usually uses dark rum for the flambee portion of the dessert, tequila — particularly añejo tequila — is a perfect replacement. It'll still be similar to the original, but the tequila will add smoky caramel flavors that blend beautifully with brown sugar, cinnamon, and bananas. 

It's so easy to do, too. Start with a really good bananas Foster recipe, and when it comes time to add the rum, replace it 1:1 with tequila, light it, and let it burn. Serve it over vanilla ice cream or, for a Southwestern take on the classic, spoon it over the top of custard or flan. It's the perfect showy dessert for a Mexican-inspired dinner party.

Margarita fans already know how tasty the combination of tequila and lime is — it's a true classic. But if you want the flavors but don't feel like having a drink, you can make a really tasty grilled chicken that incorporates this classic duo. 

To make tequila lime grilled chicken, you'll make a marinade similar to the one you use for drunken steak. You can use the flavors as written exactly in the recipe or get adventurous by adding your own Southwestern favorites to it, like chopped scallions or a pinch of ground coriander. Marinate the chicken for about four hours, wipe away excess marinade, and then grill it. You can use boneless, skinless chicken breasts, but I'm a huge fan of doing this with thigh meat that I chop up after cooking and serve on a bed of greens with a Southwestern vinaigrette, ranch dressing, or pico di gallo. You can also use the tequila-lime marinade for fish (it only needs to marinate for about 30 minutes) or simmer the marinade and use it to top rice, fish, chicken, beef, or pork.

Vinaigrettes are tasty on green salads, but they're really versatile on everything else. Toss them with cooked veggies, use them as a marinade for proteins, drizzle them over heirloom tomatoes, or toss them with cooled cooked rice or pasta and other ingredients to make a great picnic salad. 

Lime is the classic flavor to pair with tequila in a vinaigrette, but you can also use lemon or orange. I like using the zest instead of juice because the citrus flavors are more concentrated. Any type of tequila will work well for a vinaigrette. Mixto will add sweetness, blanco will have a more neutral flavor, and añejo will add spiced or caramel flavors and complexity. Other ingredients you can add include Dijon mustard, hot sauce, chopped fresh oregano or cilantro, chili powder, avocado oil, and salt. To make the vinaigrette, you'll want to add three parts olive oil to one part liquid that includes tequila and vinegar. Add other herbs and spices to taste. Mustard will help emulsify and keep the vinaigrette together when you whisk it. You can keep your vinaigrette for up to a week in the fridge.