15 Foods Everyone Mistakes As Mexican Food (2024)

When you think of a taco, what ingredients come to mind? Meat, salsa, tortillas, cheddar cheese, and sour cream, right? Lo siento, but tacos in Mexico are not traditionally heavy on dairy. Don't worry: You can find tacos with cheese in them, but they're often called gringas (a somewhat derogatory slang word to refer to female foreigners) in reference to the true origin of the taco + cheese combo. Toppings on REAL tacos in Mexico don't go far beyond some fresh cilanto and diced onion.

That mustachioed man with the nice sombrero might be deceiving, but Tapatio (the salsa at least, Tapatios are people from the city of Guadalajara) is not Mexican at all. The spicy condiment is actually manufactured in Vernon, CA.

Don't get me wrong, chili con carne is delicious, but the dish was actually created in the Southwest — most likely Texas. Ask for chili con carne in Mexico, and you'll definitely have a harder time bridging the cultural gap.

Sopapillas are the "Mexican" version of beignets — deep-fried pieces of dough sprinkled with powdered sugar or cinnamon. However, the yummy pastries are actually not Mexican at all, unless you count New Mexico as part of Mexico, in which case, please leave this article and consult a map and a history book.

Ah queso, perhaps the most heavenly appetizer to exist, but alas, not Mexican, at least not the delicious cowboy kind you're used to. While melted cheese is served as a popular appetizer in Mexico, it's called queso fundido, and is typically made of white cheeses such as Oaxaca, Chihuahua, or Manchego (good luck finding those here), and is topped with chorizo or rajas (roasted chile poblano). The Velveeta version that's popular in the US actually originated in, you guessed it, Texas.

You know how most Mexican restaurants in the US will give you the option between crispy or soft tacos? That's not a thing in Mexico. In fact, while Glen Bell, the founder of Taco Bell, may not have been the first to fry a tortilla, he was largely responsible for making the crispy taco a phenomenon. Don't get me wrong — you can find hard-shell tacos in Mexico, but they're generally family recipes — don't expect your taquero to give you that option.

Though delicious, this sizzling creation is unfortunately not a product of Mexican minds. Once again, the Lone Star State is responsible for this dish, with the preparation and nickname dating back to 1930's Texas ranches.

For some reason, it's pretty common that if you order a Mexican beer at a bar — like Corona, or Pacifico — it'll come accompanied with a little lime wedge for "extra flavor." In Mexico, however, beers don't come with lime unless you order a michelada (a beer prepared with a variety of salsas and juices). Oh, and ditto for shots of tequila: none of that salt and lime business down South.

In Mexico, burritos are small donkeys, not a huge rice-and-bean-filled tortilla. The burrito, like a lot of other things on this list, has a very complicated background. Although there are theories that place its origin in northern Mexico at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, the burrito as we know it today wasn't served until the 1930s in California. While you can find smaller versions of your classic burrito in northern Mexico (given the area's proximity to the US), the further you go into the country, the more likely that when you ask for a burrito you'll get one of the Eeyore variety.

In case you're not from the South and have never encountered a chimichanga, all you need to know is that they're basically deep-fried burritos. Unlike their burrito cousins, the origins of the chimichanga are a little less dubious: they were invented in either Phoenix or Tucson.

While tacos are definitely, 100 percent, without-a-doubt Mexican, the way tacos al pastor are cooked (on a spit, shwarma-style) is actually not native to the country. They didn't come along until the early 1900s, when Lebanese immigrants moved to Mexico and brought their spit-roasting technique with them, completely revolutionizing the way the taco was prepared. So, people of Lebanon, from the bottom of our hearts, gracias.

Okay, so flour tortillas are Mexican, but like hard-shell tortillas, they're not as commonly used as your local Mexican restaurant might lead you to believe. The tortilla choices in Mexico are generally limited to different varieties of corn for tacos, soups, tostadas, and everything in between. Flour tortillas on the other hand, are typically only used for quesadillas.

Churros are actually very widely available in Mexico, so much so that many churro cafes offer a variety of churros filled with delicious jellies and spreads (Nutella, strawberry jelly, and sweetened condensed milk, to name a few). However, as much as they're beloved in the country, the sweet pastry as we know it today is actually a product of Spain.