Spice Up Your Meal with this Mexican Fusion Poutine!

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Watch the recipe

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It’s summertime! The food trucks are out everywhere, and I don’t know about you but I love to visit my favorite food trucks and new ones! Food trucks are an integral part of summer, and any foodie definitely can agree on that!

Poutine is one of those dishes that’s served at pretty much any food truck in Canada (or at least Ottawa, the capital of Canada!). You’ve got many takes on the classic, but food trucks with owners from different parts of the world love to bring their own cuisine to this Canadian dish.

To say that I love the classic poutine is an understatement. If you follow my Instagram, you’ll see me on a very regular basis either enjoying a delicious poutine for lunch from a food truck nearby, or whipping up poutine on the side for a burger, chicken wings, or just on its own! What’s not to love about the hot gravy, tasty cheese curds, and thick cut fries! But there are times where some different flavor combinations and toppings seem like fun to explore! Actually, as I write this, I actually had a buffalo chicken poutine the night before, and I had so much left over that it made for an awesome breakfast and lunch! Tip: While I wouldn’t recommend making your poutine ahead of time to begin with, if there so happens to be leftovers, the air fryer is a great way to reheat your poutine! Actually, the air fryer is awesome to reheat so many things, but that’s another story!

Why Make Mexican-Style Poutine

This Mexican Fusion Poutine recipe will build on this base poutine recipe, so I highly recommend you read up on the details of that! Here’s why you’re going to love this Mexican-Fusion Poutine recipe:

• The Homemade Guacamole and Pico de Gallo add so much freshness that complement the warm gravy
• Our classic gravy has a hint of heat thanks to the Taco Seasoning
• We’ve got some meatiness and spice from the chorizo sausage
• A drizzle of sour cream brings this all together and cools down the heat from the spicy elements!

This Mexican-Fusion poutine recipe was so much fun to prepare! The motivation behind it was to participate in a fun YouTube collab, the great Poutine Cook Off! I recommend you check out the video recipe at the bottom of the post to not only see my recipe, but the awesome poutine recipe by my fellow YouTuber Andrea Cooks at Home (and subscribe to her too!)

Ingredients for Mexican Fusion Poutine

Let’s break down the ingredients we’ll need for our poutine. The full ingredient list with measurements can be found in the PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD at the bottom of this post!

For the Beef Gravy

• Beef broth: I recommend you use a lower-sodium beef broth if possible so that you have control over how much salt to add in your gravy. I also have an alternative gravy using chicken gravy mix in my Epic Canadian Poutine recipe.
• Better than bouillon beef base: This is a concentrated beef base that gives a much richer flavor than a typical beef bouillon cube, but if you can’t find this, then feel free to use a beef bouillon cube. A little bit of this goes a long way! I didn’t originally add it to my recipe, but now I can’t go back!
• Butter: Used to make the roux and give the gravy a nice sheen.
• All-purpose flour: Thickening agent as part of the roux. You want to cook out your flour before adding in your beef broth.
• Taco Seasoning: This is the Mexican fusion part of the gravy! Excellent Quick and Easy Homemade Taco Seasoning will add a touch of spice to the gravy, and completely transform it from the classic!
• Worcestershire sauce: A splash is all you need.
• Cornstarch: Make a slurry with water by whisking cornstarch and water together. This further thickens your sauce and turns it into a gravy
• Salt: To taste.

For the Fries

• Yellow potatoes: If you’ve seen any of my other French fry recipes (and I definitely have a lot!) you’ll see that I love using yellow potatoes instead of russet potatoes to make fries. This is because I find that the taste is much closer to fries from fast food places and restaurants. I love the creaminess of the inside that you’ll get from using Yukon gold yellow potatoes, while I find russet potatoes are a bit bland. I’ve read people complain that yellow potatoes don’t get crispy and are limp when making fries. Well, I don’t think they’re making their fries properly!
• Olive oil: I’ll be using olive oil to drizzle onto my fries before baking them in the oven. I also recommend you do this step if you’re Air Frying your French fries. However, if you’re deep frying your fries for this poutine recipe, then I recommend you use vegetable oil or canola oil to deep fry.

For Toppings

• Cheese curds: An essential ingredient for poutine! If you struggle to get your cheese curds to melt (apparently authentic poutines don’t have their cheese curds melting but I love it when mine are molten!), I actually found that I had so many cheese pulls when eating this poutine! You won’t wanna skip out! But if you can’t find cheese curds at your grocery store, then you can certainly substitute with mozzarella. Cut it into small cubes of a similar size to cheese curds.
• Chorizo sausage: To add some body and heat to our poutine.
• Homemade Guacamole: My guacamole recipe is tangy and refreshing, with a little bit of heat from the green chilies! You’ll love the creamy avocado combined with that spicy gravy and those squeaky cheese curds!
• Homemade Pico de Gallo: Pico de Gallo is so quick to make and well worth it! This adds lots of freshness to your poutine! While you may think that the raw tomatoes may not work on the hot gravy, they actually taste so good and don’t distract from the taste of the gravy at all! This helps to balance out all the heat we have.
• Fresh jalapeño: If you’re worried that our gravy is already too spicy, then don’t worry! We’ll only have a little bit of jalapeños for garnish on top, and you can omit the seeds.
• Sour cream: This balances out all the spicy elements of the poutine by adding some coolness, and it really completes the poutine.

How to Make Mexican Fusion Poutine

How to Make the Fries

For Air Fryer Fries

1. Add the peeled, cut fries in a large bowl and fill with cold water and soak for about 25 minutes (see tip for a shortcut). In the meanwhile, set a large pot of water to boil.
2. Add soaked fries to the boiling water and boil for 3-5 minutes, or until the potatoes are partly cooked but still firm. Add only enough potatoes that will comfortably fit in your air fryer basket in a single layer.
3. Drain the potatoes onto paper towel and gently pat dry. Then, transfer the fries to a large bowl and coat with olive oil. Gently toss the potatoes in the oil and arrange fries in a single layer in the air fryer basket
4. Set Air Fryer to Air Fry mode at 400F and cook for 20 minutes.
5. If making a multiple batch, transfer the fries from the air fryer basket to a bowl/baking sheet and repeat steps 2-4 for the remaining portion of fries.
6. Once all the fries are crispy, you can toss all the fries in a single basket to refresh the fries at 375F-390F for 3-5 minutes. Voila!

For Oven Baked Fries

1. Preheat the oven to 475 F.
2. In the meanwhile, cut the potatoes into slices 1/4 inch thick. In a large bowl, add the fries and fill with water. Let the fries soak for at least 25 minutes.
3. In the meanwhile, set a large pot of water to boil.
4. Add soaked fries to the boiling water and boil for 3-5 minutes, or until the potatoes are partly cooked but still firm.
5. Drain the potatoes onto paper towel and gently pat dry.
6. Transfer fries to a large enough bowl and season with salt and olive oil. Layer a large baking tray with parchment paper and place the fries on it. Bake the fries on the middle rack for 20 minutes or until they are light golden brown
7. Once lightly browned, move the rack and tray to the lowest oven rack bake until crispy, flipping once to ensure each side is crisp.

How to Make the Tasty Taco Gravy

1. Heat a saucepan on medium heat and add butter and flour. Whisk well and add the bouillon paste and taco seasoning and cook out the roux, until the rawness of the flour is cooked out.
2. Add beef stock, 1/4-1/2 Cup at a time and whisk until you have added all the stock.
3. Add 1-2 splashes of Worcestershire sauce and bring the gravy up to a simmer and cook until reduced by half in volume.
4. Once the stock has reduced by half, season with salt and pepper. Prepare corn starch slurry by whisking together cornstarch with water.
5. Add slurry to the gravy and mix well.
6. Simmer until the gravy has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon and set aside until fries are ready.
7. Bring the gravy back up to heat before serving and adjust consistency with water if required.

How to Prepare the Toppings

1. Prepare the Pico De Gallo as instructed here and the guacamole as instructed here. Or you can pick it up from your favourite store.
2. Thinly slice the chorizo and sear it on a pan until crispy. Thinly slice the jalapeño as well and transfer the sour cream to a squeeze bottle.

How to Assemble the Poutine

1. Add a layer of fries to a large platter/serving bowl and then add a layer of cheese curds. Pour hot taco gravy over the fries and cheese curds.
2. Repeat the same until you have run out of fries or gravy. Then drizzle with sour cream, top with spoonfuls of pico de gallo and guacamole.
3. Top with crispy chorizo and sliced jalapeño and serve immediately.

Tips for the Perfect Mexican Fusion Poutine

• DO NOT SEASON the French fries!! The seasoning from the gravy will help season the fries, anything extra will risk too much salt in the dish.
• Use reduced salt/no salt broth to allow you to control the amount of salt and seasoning in the gravy
• Use a large bowl or a casserole to assemble this poutine to show off all the colorful toppings