The Mexican chef’s guide to making excellent nachos at home

As homemade snacks and easy meals go, there aren’t many that beat nachos. They cover a few food groups, they’re gluten-free, you can proteinmaxx them, there’s melted cheese involved, and you can eat them with one hand while watching the footy on TV. So what are the nachos basics and are there any hacks or rules?

Are nachos Mexican?

They were invented in the northern Mexico town of Piedras Negras in 1943 by a waiter called Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya. A gaggle of US Army wives descended on his restaurant before the chef arrived, and Nacho threw together a baked tortilla dish from ingredients he had to hand. The women approved and took the dish across the border where it was amped up, becoming a Tex-Mex staple and baseball game essential.

“We do eat nachos in Mexico,” says Luis Sanchez, chef at Hotel Mexico in Yarraville in Melbourne’s inner west. “They’re usually simpler than the Tex-Mex versions, with just cheese, pickled jalapeno and chipotle mayo. We put them in the centre of the table at the start of a meal. For us, nachos means family and sharing.”

How does a Mexican chef make them in Melbourne?

Freshly fried tortilla triangles (a mix of yellow and blue corn) are placed in a bowl, then scattered with grated mozzarella cheese before being melted under a grill. The oozy mess is loaded with guacamole, pico de gallo (tomato salsa), pickled jalapeno slices, sour cream and fresh coriander.

“We put Mexican ingredients on it so we could say it’s more Mexican than anything else,” says the chef, who is from Puebla, south-east of Mexico City.

There’s the option to load up with meat too. “You can turn our nachos into a meal by adding chorizo, chicken, birria or a vegetarian version with mushrooms,” he says.

What are the shortcuts?

You can buy corn chips instead of frying tortillas but you should still use a mix of white corn and blue corn for flavour variation – and because it looks cool. Any melting cheese can be substituted for mozzarella. There are plenty of good jarred salsas, but if you want to make your own, it’s just finely chopped tomato, onion, coriander, lime juice and pickled jalapenos.

Guacamole is worth making yourself – at its simplest, it’s just avo, lime juice, salt and pepper – but you can use a store-bought version too.

Is there anything else I could try?

“Nachos are getting popular in Mexico and changing a little bit,” says Sanchez. In his central region, dorilocos or tostilocos (“crazy corn chips”) are street food that you can modify as desired. Often made directly inside a cut-open bag of Doritos or Tostitos, they’re loaded with ingredients such as roasted peanuts, white corn kernels, pickled pork rind, fresh carrot and cucumber, and chamoy (a pickled fruit condiment) or Salsa Valentina, a bottled hot sauce.

In northern coastal parts of Mexico, baked tortilla chips are sometimes topped with seafood, such as garlic shrimp or crab. In summary, go forth and mod your nachos. I’m thinking chilli crisp …