Quesadilla Sauce

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Make this creamy jalapeño sauce entirely in your blender, then add it to all of your homemade quesadillas for some extra zing (or dip your quesadillas right into the sauce). It’s also great for chips, nachos, tacos, and taco salads!

What is Quesadilla Sauce?

No shame confession time: I love me some Taco Bell. In fact, after I graduated from college and lived by myself, there was a Taco Bell on my way home from the gym, and I stopped there for dinner… Frequently.

I am a giant sucker for a hard shell taco, but when they came out with those chicken quesadillas, my life was changed!

I loved the slightly spicy, super zesty, and oh-so-creamy sauce that was on the quesadillas, and it wasn’t until I decided to create sheet pan quesadillas for my site that I thought it would be simple to create Taco Bell’s quesadilla sauce myself.

I went straight to the source and checked out the ingredients in their creamy jalapeno sauce and saw that aside from lots of weird ingredients (#fastfood), the base of the recipe was really just a bunch of simple ingredients I had in my pantry and refrigerator already.

So… A copycat recipe it is! And don’t worry, I’ll show you exactly how to use this great sauce as more than just a dipping sauce for your quesadillas.

The base of the sauce is mayonnaise and sour cream. You could also use Greek yogurt if you prefer!

The jalapeño portion of the sauce comes from pickled jalapenos (the ones that come in a jar), whose juice we will also use to thin out and flavor our homemade quesadilla sauce. You could use fresh jalapenos if you’re up for the spiciness, but you’ll also want to grab some of the jarred juice to help bring the tangy and vinegary aspect to the quesadilla sauce recipe.

The spices are the final components, and that list includes paprika, ground cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, and salt. You’ve definitely got all of those if you’re even remotely into cooking Tex-Mex food, right?

Yep. That’s it.

Blend to your liking, meaning blend it a lot to really emulsify the jalapeno peppers, or blend it just a little to give your spicy sauce some chunks. You can also chop the jalapeño peppers by hand, then stir them into the other ingredients, if you really want chunks. Totally up to you! Bottom line… It’s an easy recipe! Don’t overthink it.

In the recipe, I start with just 2 Tablespoons of the jalapeno juice, but you may want to add more to thin your sauce out based on the other ingredients you use.

I find that different brands of sour cream have different viscosities, so if yours is on the thinner side, your yummy sauce may already be on the runnier side and you won’t want to add any more jalapeño juice. If it’s thicker, maybe you want to keep the sauce as is, or maybe you want to thin it out.

You choose!

Other ways to serve this recipe for Quesadilla Sauce

This sauce also makes a great salad dressing, a dipping sauce for quesadillas, a basic chip dip, and as a taco sauce for a taco salad or a plate of tacos. It would also make a great topping for nachos!

There’s no reason you have to limit this sauce to quesadillas, and I’d love to hear the ways you’re using your sauce… Or just invite me over so I can taste test your version.

Use it for plain cheese quesadillas, burrito bowls, your favorite Mexican dishes, anything you’d put hot sauce on… The possibilities are endless and bound to be delicious!