54 Reviews of Traditional Tamales (Pork)

From: Charlotte J

On Jan 28, 2002

These are so good and well while the time they take to prepare. If you steam on top of your stove use medium heat & watch closely. Next time I'm going to make an extra cup of the Red Chili Sauce to top each tamale with a tsp or so before serving. These were so good and Karen, thanks for all the help!!

From: Terri F.

On Apr 2, 2002

Delicious! These are a lot of work, but the end result is sooooo good! I froze them individually in foil, and then packaged them in freezer bags so that I can take them out as needed and microwave them. I did not change the recipe at all, as this is the first time I've made tamales. Thanks for a great recipe, Karen! :o)

From: Mysterygirl

On May 6, 2002

Karen, have your ears been buring today?! I got so many compliments on these and I kept telling everyone about this lady in CO named Karen whose recipe they were enjoying. Great tamales. I didn't get quite 50 out of the masa harina mixture, but I do have the filling left over so I will make more. Also, my bag of husks said to soak for a minimum of 2 hours, so I soaked mine longer than the recipe suggested. I used my pasta insert in my stock pot for a steamer and it worked great! I will make these again.

From: Muffin Goddess

On Jan 16, 2006

Wow, I can't believe that I forgot to review this before now! Anyway, I have made these two times, once entirely by hand (oof!), once with my new Xmas toy (Kitchenaid Artisan stand mixer, yay!). Although they came out pretty good by hand, I definitely recommend using an appliance for best results with the masa, both for ease of preparation and texture of the masa. The tamales that I made using the mixer were 10 times better than the hand ones, per DH. I added one large black olive to each tamale when wrapping (supposed to be a good luck thing?), and I also forgot to measure out 4 cups of the red chile sauce and dumped the whole batch into the pork, which I find that I actually prefer. Another thing that made them better the second time around was that I referred to Alice Guadalupe Tapp's "Tamales 101" for technique pointers (this is a great little cookbook for tamale lovers, and it offers a lot of technique along with a bunch of recipes for all kinds of tamales). Of course, I didn't need the recipe for red chile pork tamales because I already had this one, I just needed a few diagrams and pointers for assembly and such. Oh, and I used two different sized cookie scoops to portion out the masa and filling for each tamale, which quickened things up quite a bit, I think. As further testimony to how good these are, only 1.5 dozen of the 5.5 dozen tamales I made actually made it into the freezer (and I think that DH ate all but 8 of the ones that didn't make it to the freezer, not in one sitting though! LOL). I will definitely make these again (maybe just for holidays though, because of labor-intensiveness). Thanks for posting!

From: Kevin Young

On May 18, 2003

Wow! These were amazing. I had them in my cookbook forever but just finally got the time to do this. SO GOOD, and they beat anything I've had in a restaurant. If you have the time, you HAVE to make these. Thanks so much for this recipe.

From: David Fallen

On Jul 26, 2002

My daughter and her boyfriend came to our house last sunday. We spent the afternoon making tamales (150). We had a great time. The tamales were excellent! Best I have ever had. We made half of them with chicken and the other half pork.I used Thai peppers grown by a freind of mine (quite spicy) they were excellent. I didnt understand the direction of using 15 large peppers. How big is a large pepper? So I used 30 Thais per batch. Thank you for a great recipe and a lovely afternoon.

From: Tiffanylsu

On Oct 20, 2005

I don't know why people say it takes days to make tamales...but it does take awhile spreading the masa in the corn husks. I loved this recipe and I will never buy tamales again. However I did use a different sauce recipe (straight from a Mexican friend)...You take 3 or 4 dried ancho peppers, boil them back to life, then take out the seeds and stem, throw them in the blender, add salt, pepper and dried oregano. Add water to the mix until you get the desired thickness. It was way easier than I thought!

From: ~Paula~

On Jul 8, 2004

These were FABULOUS! They are quite a bit of work, but as you say, so worth it! I made the pork one day and refrigerated the broth so I could remove the excess fat. The next day I finished the recipe. Our family really enjoyed these tamales. Thank you Karen!

From: LizAnn

On Dec 29, 2003

This was my third year trying Tamales, which I am making a Christmas tradition. My first two attempts they came out a little bland. Then I came across your recipe. These were excellent. I doubled the recipe and made almost 100 small tamales. I gave some away and we gobbled up the rest in no time. None of my family ever grew tired of them. I have found my keeper. Thanks for all the help!!!

From: Sheri-BDB

On Mar 27, 2003

This is Excellent! I've made beef tamales before but never pork. I really thought these are wonderful! Thank You So Much!