4 Spice Easy Enchilada Sauce

If you've ever made a roux type sauce or flour pan gravy, you already know how to make this sauce. This can also be very easily doubled by just simply doubling the ingredients, the way my crowd eats I couldn't get by without doubling this one. First, add the vegetable oil to a sauce pan and warm over medium-high heat. Add the flour as you would if making gravy and stir together with the oil, I like to use a whisk for this to prevent lumps. Stir together for a minute until the flour and oil are thoroughly mixed. This mixture won't look like much – maybe a small glob of goo in the bottom of the pan, but it is enough to thicken our sauce. Add the 4 spice mixture to the flour and oil mixture, stirring constantly during each addition. You will start to notice the mixture becoming a beautiful dark red color at this point. If you are a person that has access to a lot of different chili powders (or even make your own), I imagine you could do a lot with this sauce just by changing the type of chili powder that you use. I personally use the grocery store name brand kind and that's good for us. While still whisking, add the 2 cups of chicken broth slowly as if you are making gravy. This should take a few minutes as you are adding a little at a time. Salt - You can add salt here if you wish. Be careful here - if you use canned chicken broth the amount of salt you add will depend on how salty your broth is. Some canned broth is low-sodium and some is not. If you make your own then you get bonus points because you already probably know how much salt is there. You can use chicken flavored bouillon cubes if you don't have broth - usually two cubes mixed with 2 cups of water to make broth - but if you do, I would omit the salt entirely because bouillon cubes are plenty salty on their own. Of course homemade broth will always be preferred in any dish, but I'm all about making great food out of what is on hand, so if bouillon cubes is what you have, use it! It will still taste great. Once incorporated, continue to stir over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until you notice that the sauce is thickened. You may need to make sure that your mixture starts to bubble slightly before the thickening occurs, but there is no need to boil. This sauce will not get really thick but should not be watery either. This enchilada sauce is great served immediately as a condiment or as an addition to a dish or casserole. Alternately