What Can You Use Instead of Masa Harina
Masa harina is a staple in Latin American cuisine, and many recipes call for it. The term "masa harina" literally ways "dough flour" in Spanish, yet the bodily substance differs from all-purpose flour because the latter is made from wheat, and the former comes from corn.
I love cooking with masa harina considering I dear Latin American food, but I know a lot of people don't have the ingredient. Not to worry: These masa harina substitute options volition salve the solar day!
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Masa Harina Substitutes You Tin Employ
#1 - Ground-up Corn Tortillas
I frequently take actress corn tortillas laying effectually my kitchen because I love making tostadas, tacos and burritos with them. Sometimes, they're stale and prepare to throw abroad, but as long as they're non sprouting mold, they're totally fine for churning into a not bad masa harina flour for your recipes.
Why do basis-upwards corn tortillas work so well in this capacity? The answer lies in the fact that corn tortillas are fabricated from masa harina itself. You do add a little kosher table salt and hot water to the mix, but basically, corn tortillas are masa harina in a unlike class.
To make flour out of the tortillas, throw iii or four of them into a food processor or blender and grind them to a fine consistency.
Different recipes will require different consistencies of the ground-up flour, so keep that in mind and observe the right consistency for your recipe. For example, tamales are usually made from harina or flour that is a little coarser than most.
#2 - Fresh Masa Preparada
Via seriouseats.com
In many recipes, masa preparada is going to be easier to utilise than masa harina. For example, if yous program to brand corn tortillas using masa preparada, which is Spanish for "prepared dough," it volition eliminate some steps for you.
Think of it similar buying prepared, raw dough for making a loaf of bread. In that example, you wouldn't need to make the dough yourself by combining yeast, h2o, flour and saccharide. You but commencement with the dough already made.
Masa preparada is made from masa harina, and that'south why information technology acts the same in well-nigh recipes. The latter is fabricated from hominy, which is simply corn that has been hulled and treated. In short, the hominy is treated with lime h2o made from calcium hydroxide, which removes the hulls and softens it.
You tin can generally purchase a smoothen consistency of masa preparada or a coarser version that is used for tamales and a few other archetype dishes.
Masa preparada comes in a airtight plastic bag and has a brusk shelf life, so don't plan on ownership it and leaving information technology in your fridge for a long fourth dimension. It can nearly easily be found in Mexican grocery stores and other Latin American food shops.
#3 - Make Your Own Masa Harina
Via seriouseats.com
If you don't have pre-made masa harina on hand or can't find it in the store, making your own may sound like an odd substitute.
Still, information technology's definitely a possibility if you're up for the claiming. Fortunately, information technology's not too labor intensive and can actually be pretty fun. There are many recipes for making masa harina online, but the process is simple.
To start, you'll need some dried, whole-grain corn .This can exist purchased in stores or online and is oftentimes used to make various other corn-based foods such as polenta or grits.
In add-on, you'll demand lime. Unfortunately, a standard, fresh lime isn't going to cut it. Instead, you'll need powdered lime or calcium hydroxide, which can be purchased online and in some stores besides. Y'all'll also see this ingredient listed equally cal or slaked lime.
Calcium hydroxide has been used for millennia in Latin American cooking. When added to dried corn that is soaking in h2o, the corn swells, and the corn husks are naturally loosened abroad from each kernel. The entire process is chosen nixtamalization.
Keep in mind that you can likewise add existent lime juice to your masa harina when making tortillas and other dishes, simply the latter addition won't be calcium hydroxide. Information technology will simply exist fresh lime juice to enhance the flavor of the finished production.
#four - Ground Hominy
Via keviniscooking.com
Hominy is the main ingredient in masa harina only every bit it is the chief ingredient in polenta and atole, a traditional Mexican potable. Hominy tin can also be eaten whole. In essence, hominy is just kernels of corn, but information technology'south a special kind of corn that's been hulled by way of the chemic process outlined above.
Hulled, in this case, means that the tough outer shells have been removed from the soft inner kernels of the stale corn y'all're using. Even if you don't take masa harina on hand, you might at to the lowest degree have this main ingredient, hominy, on paw.
I myself like to keep canned and stale hominy in the cupboard for other recipes, and then in a compression, this is a squeamish replacement to use when I'm cooking and need some masa harina.
Dried hominy can be cooked into the hominy y'all'll find canned in much the same way you cook pinto beans to brand refried beans.
You lot can purchase hominy at Latin American grocery stores or online. To use footing hominy as a substitute for masa harina, you'll need to grind the corn yourself with a food processor, a grinder or a metate y mano.
A metate y mano or a piedra de moler is a tool used largely in the past in Mexico and other Latin American countries to grind and pulverize corn kernels, seeds and nuts. It consists of a stone slab and a cylindrical grinder.
#5, #6, #7, #eight
I just want to let y'all know that I've tried a lot of ingredients to discover out which are the all-time substitutes for masa harina. #5, #6, #7, and #8 are my answers. They are 93% equally fine as masa harina!
To get my discovery for the best substitutes, please fill in the grade below. It shows that yous actually care virtually every ingredient yous utilize, y'all appreciate my piece of work. Too, it gives me a lot of free energy to continue researching, experimenting, and bringing more value to you. 🙂
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#5 - Ground-up Corn Tortilla Chips, Corn Taco Shells or Corn Tostadas
Via huffingtonpost.com
Depending on what you lot're making, ground corn tortilla chips, taco shells or tostadas can be used in place of masa harina.
Retrieve that if you make up one's mind to grind upward fresh corn tortillas that haven't been baked or fried, this is the best solution for creating a useful masa harina exchange. However, corn tortilla fries, corn taco shells and corn tostadas comprise largely the same ingredients as their fresh corn tortilla counterparts: They contain masa harina, water and table salt.
The difference between fresh corn tortillas and these other three corn products is that the hardened chips, shells and tostadas have been either baked or fried, which is actually an American invention.
Also, call up that some shop-bought corn tortilla chips, taco shells or tostadas will have extra ingredients added to them to keep them fresher. These won't brand much deviation, but but continue it in listen.
In general, you'll but want to use this substitution method as a thickener for soups or some drinks. If possible, opt for the baked versions of these products instead of the fried versions.
Feel gratuitous to either crumble the fries and shells in your hands or, if you demand a consistency that more than closely resembles real masa harina, grind them in a food processor to a fine consistency.
#six - Cornstarch
Via huffingtonpost.com
Cornstarch is the #1 recommended substitute I picked up and tried from QuickEasyCook.com. Cornstarch is a pulverisation made from the endosperm of corn. In some cases, you may hear of cornstarch beingness called corn flour. Most of the time, cornstarch is used every bit a thickener for sauces, gravies and soups. For case, you can use information technology to brand a great translucent stir fry sauce. It's useful because it has double the thickening power of regular flour.
To use cornstarch as a thickener replacement for masa harina, you can make a slurry by combining equal parts thickener and liquid.
In this case, you might milkshake or mix 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and 2 tablespoons of water , wine or flavored stock to be added every bit a thickening agent to your recipe.
Remember that you must create the slurry first. Adding the cornstarch directly to the dish every bit you lot're cooking without adding a liquid to it first will make your recipe clumpy.
#vii - Arrowroot Pulverisation
Via anthonysgoods.com
Arrowroot pulverisation is a type of starch that comes from the root of a tropical establish called the arrowroot. Just as with cornstarch, you'll want to create a slurry with one role arrowroot powder and one office vino, water or other liquid to thicken soups, sauces or jams.
The main deviation with arrowroot pulverisation is that with this ingredient, many experience the extraction process is more natural with less need for harsh chemicals. In addition, arrowroot is less likely to comprise genetically modified ingredients. Arrowroot tends to be a piddling more expensive than cornstarch.
#eight - Flours of Various Kinds
Via shipton-factory.com
In many cases, flours of various kinds can be substituted for masa harina. Just remember that this isn't the example for all recipes.
Flours that aren't fabricated from corn will inherently alter the texture, flavour and consistency of what you're cooking if what yous're making relies on that classic masa harina corn taste. But for some things, such as chilis, soups and other recipes that crave masa harina as a thickening agent, flours work well.
The term flour refers to whatever basis and sifted meal, whatsoever powdery substance that comes from grinding a detail nutrient. When talking about flour, meal ordinarily refers to pulverisation that results from grinding a grain, something that has been done for thousands of years.
There are many grains that tin can be basis into meal and made into flours. In the instance of masa harina, the grain is corn. In other types of floursouth, the grains or other main ingredients for grinding may range from wheat to oat, barley, buckwheat, almond, millet, rye, quinoa, rice and others.
Even within these categories, yous can find diverse other types of flours for cooking dissimilar types of foods. For case, there'south cake flour, bread flour and pastry flour. Equally with cornstarch or arrowroot, you'll want to make a slurry for thickening.
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#9 - Grits
Via spicysouthernkitchen.com
Grits is a traditional dish that's inexpensive to buy or make at home, and it was popular during the late 19th century and early on 20th century. I love a warm and tasty bowl of grits for breakfast on a cold winter morning.
Grits is made from cleaved pieces of corn. Corn kernels are put through an industrial mill to grind them up, and the resulting meal is so put through a screen. The larger pieces are grits, and the smaller pieces that go through the screen are cornmeal.
To make gritsouthward, simply follow these steps:
- Heat up water and butter on the stove before adding the grits and cooking for about 40 minutes.
- Use slightly less water than you'd utilize to completely melt your grits equally a stand up-alone meal.
- When they're soft, add them to your stew, chowder or soup for thickening.
#10 - Polenta
Via seriouseats.com
Polenta is a dish from northern Italy. Yous might have seen it and thought it was yellowish porridge or grits. Today, polenta is made from cooking ground cornmeal, but in the 16th century, Europeans frequently ate this dish using chickpeas, farrow, millet, chestnuts or spelt.
Even though polenta is sold in stores, you lot can also detect it in a bag only like flour or masa harina in the cooking aisle. In this case, you'll buy the polenta or coarsely ground corn in dry class. If you want to use polenta as a substitute for masa harina, y'all'll want to try to observe finely ground polenta and simply use it equally you would masa harina.
If you lot can't notice dry polenta at all because it is sometimes sold in a tube, you tin merely utilise this equally a thickening amanuensis if it fits with the dish y'all're making. The polenta in a tube would work best with a chowder or soup that calls for masa harina rather than a more traditional dish like tamales.
Polenta is unlike from grits merely not past much. Polenta is made from flint corn, and grits are made from dent corn. Each of these types of corn produces unlike textures and flavors.
#11 - Cornmeal
Via seriouseats.com
Cornmeal is a type of flour made from corn. There are many types of cornmeal and many textures equally well. For case, you might find blue, reddish, white or xanthous varieties based on the corn that was ground.
Yous might find fine, medium or coarsely footing cornmeal. Continue in mind that cornmeal is different from dry polenta. But when the cornmeal is coarse, it'south often sold equally polenta or grits on the label instead of as cornmeal. This is why I've included both grits and polenta in the list of possible masa harina substitutes; it often comes downwardly to labeling.
To use cornmeal equally a substitute for masa harina, you'll want to discover xanthous cornmeal flour. This tin essentially be substituted in any recipe, but continue in listen that the nixtamalization process wouldn't have taken place to create the flour, so that special limewater taste won't be there. In addition, the coarseness of the cornmeal may not quite lucifer that of the masa harina.
Conclusion
As someone who loves to cook and bake for her family, I know how exhausting information technology can exist to try to find the right substitutions, especially for something like masa harina. You wouldn't desire to carelessness your unabridged recipe, so using a substitute lets you stay on runway and go your meal on the table without another trip to the store.
Did you enjoy this list of masa harina substitute options, and do you recollect they'll be helpful to you? I promise the suggestions heighten your time in the kitchen. Don't forget to share this article!
Or if you lot want to enjoy other kinds of recipes, read about best cheese slicer.
Source: https://chewtheworld.com/masa-harina-substitute/
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