Huevos Ranchers is a basic, go-to New Mexico breakfast that can be readily adapted based on the type of chile and how you cook the eggs.
I appreciate living someplace where huevos rancheros is readily available at almost every restaurant serving breakfast. It isn’t a complicated recipe, but there are a lot of variations. How do you want your eggs? What kind of cheese do you want to use? Which sides come with it…whole beans, refried beans, hash browns, fried potatoes, Spanish rice??? What kind of tortilla…corn tortilla, blue corn tortilla, or flour tortilla? Red chile, green chile, or Christmas (meaning both)? No chile is an unacceptable answer. What’s the point of having Huevos Rancheros without sending the eggs off to swim in red or green chile???

Huevos Rancheros Basics
The ingredients below will make 4 servings, with 2 eggs each. Adjust accordingly.
- Oil, preferably a form of vegetable oil, like corn or canola. Fill a small frying pan with about 1/4 inch of oil. Heat while you get the other components together.
- 4 small corn tortillas, yellow or blue. You can use flour tortillas, which you do NOT need to fry, but corn tortillas are better, with a flour tortilla heated on the side (as pictured above).
- 8 eggs (2 per person)
- 2-3 cups of green chile or red chile sauce. Glad I already have those recipes in place.
If making the sauces seems too complicated or time-consuming, you can order red or green chile sauces in a “just add water” format from Paulita’s or New Mexico Chili, Just Add Water. Heat your chile up in a saucepan.
- Shredded lettuce and chopped tomato for garnish (optional)
- 1 cup shredded cheese. I use extra sharp cheddar, but eggs and chile taste good with all sorts of cheese.

Directions
Set a plate with a paper towel near the stove (and back up paper towels). When the oil in the frying pan is hot enough to ripple or cackles wildly when you flick a drop of water in it, dip a corn tortilla in the oil, flipping it quickly with tongs, then removing it and placing it on a paper towel. The goal is to make it pliable rather than cooking it until it becomes crispy. Usually, it takes a few seconds on each side if the oil is hot enough. Put paper towels between the layers of corn tortillas. Once the tortillas are cooked and the excess oil is drained off, arrange them on plates and set aside.
Pour the excess oil out of the skillet, retaining enough to coat the surface. Cook the eggs any way you like them, from sunny side up to scrambled and all points in between. Top each tortilla on the prepared plates with two eggs, fried to order. Pour 1/3 to 1/2 cup of chile sauce over each egg and top with cheese. Pop the plate in the oven to melt the cheese if the eggs and tortillas aren’t hot enough to do the trick. Garnish with lettuce and tomato. Simple. Delicious. Chile is very good for you.
As you can tell from the pictures, potatoes, beans, and rice are common side dishes. If potatoes are involved, they are tasty smothered in red or green chile as well.

Please leave your recipe modifications, or any questions that you may have, in the comments below. Feel free to shout out your favorite restaurant for Huevos in the Comments.