Menus & Cuisines
Medellin Elite Catering cooks Mexican food for parties, office celebrations and themed evenings across Medellín, with menus built around enchiladas, mole, tamales and slow-cooked meats. We have been cooking for the city's events since 2019, and Mexican menus are a favorite for birthdays, year-end parties and Mexican Independence Day gatherings in September.
Our Mexican clients include Mexican expats who know exactly how a mole should taste, North Americans raised on Tex-Mex and Colombian hosts who want a change from the usual party menu. We cook for all three and tell you plainly which dishes are traditional and which are adapted.
Some Mexican ingredients are easy to find in Colombia and some are not. This page explains what we make ourselves, what we import and where we substitute, so there are no surprises on the plate.
Plan your event
Our Mexican catering is a full menu with starters, mains, sides, salsas and dessert, served hot by our staff or delivered ready to serve. It suits celebrations where guests sit down to eat: birthdays, anniversaries, retirement parties and office dinners.
We serve it three ways: a staffed buffet with chafing dishes, a plated menu in courses, or a drop-off spread in insulated carriers for smaller gatherings. For a casual, build-your-own format, our taco bar catering is the better fit. Our catering in Sabaneta team often sets this menu up on garden terraces in the south of the valley.
Mexican menus are a popular choice for adult birthday party catering, especially 30th and 40th birthdays with a margarita bar. For companies, the same menu works for year-end parties and team celebrations through our corporate event catering.
A typical Mexican buffet has two mains, rice, beans, a salad, chips with guacamole and three salsas, plus dessert. These are the dishes clients order most.
Corn tortillas are rolled around shredded chicken or cheese, covered in red guajillo sauce or green tomatillo sauce, then baked with crema and crumbled cheese. We use Colombian campesino cheese, which crumbles and softens much like Mexican queso fresco.
Mole poblano is a dark sauce of dried chiles, chocolate, nuts, seeds and spices, simmered for hours and spooned over chicken thighs with toasted sesame. Ours uses three imported chiles (ancho, mulato and pasilla) and Colombian dark chocolate, and it takes most of a day to make, so we ask for at least 5 days' notice.
Pork shoulder is marinated in achiote, sour orange and garlic, wrapped in plantain leaves and cooked slowly until it falls apart. It is the Mexican dish that translates best to Colombia, because achiote, naranja agria and plantain leaves are sold in every Medellín market, and we serve it with pickled red onion and habanero salsa.
Mexican tamales are steamed in dried corn husks, unlike the Antioquian tamal wrapped in a plantain leaf. We fill ours with pork in red chile or chicken in green salsa, and make a sweet version with corn and cheese for children and for guests who prefer mild flavors.
Mexican red rice is cooked with tomato, onion and garlic until each grain is separate. Black beans come whole or refried, and because epazote, the herb Mexican cooks use for beans, is almost never sold in Colombia, we season them with Mexican oregano and bay leaf and tell Mexican guests in advance.
Every Mexican order comes with three salsas, mild to hot, each labeled on the buffet. Pico de gallo and a roasted tomato salsa are mild, salsa verde is medium, and a habanero salsa is reserved for guests who like real heat.
Chiles are the hard part in Colombia. Fresh jalapeños and habaneros are grown here and easy to buy, but serranos, poblanos and fresh tomatillos are rare, and dried chiles such as guajillo, ancho, pasilla and chipotle reach Medellín through importers in small batches.
When a dried chile is out of stock, we tell you at the quote stage and adjust the recipe, for example using more guajillo in place of pasilla, or canned chipotle in adobo instead of dried. When tomatillos cannot be found, we make salsa verde with green tomatoes, lime and jalapeño, which is close but a little sharper.
Colombian guests generally prefer milder food than Mexican guests, so we keep the mains mild to medium and let the salsas carry the heat. If most of your guests are Mexican, tell us and we will cook the mains spicier.
The classic pairing is aguas frescas, margaritas and cold beer or micheladas. Aguas frescas are light fruit or flower drinks such as horchata (rice and cinnamon), agua de jamaica (hibiscus) and tamarind, and we add Colombian versions with maracuyá or lulo.
Margaritas are made with fresh lime and 100% agave tequila, shaken or frozen. Every bottle we pour carries the Antioquia department tax stamp required for spirits served in the department, and hosts may bring their own tequila or mezcal for our bartenders to pour.
In Colombia a michelada usually means beer with lime and a salted rim, so we offer that version next to the Mexican one with chile, lime and savory sauces. We make both with Colombian or imported Mexican lager.
Questions and answers
Yes, our corn tortillas are pressed and cooked in our kitchen on the morning of the event, from imported nixtamalized corn flour (masa harina). Colombian masarepa, the flour used for arepas, is precooked but not nixtamalized, so it cannot make a tortilla that bends without cracking. Flour tortillas are made in-house for smaller events and bought from a local producer for large ones.
Our Mexican menu is a complete meal of buffet or plated dishes such as enchiladas, mole and tamales, while the taco bar is a build-your-own station of meats, tortillas and toppings. The Mexican menu suits seated events, and the taco bar suits casual parties where guests mingle. Many hosts combine both, and our taco bar catering page has the details.
Reserve your date
Tell us your date, guest count and favorite dishes, and we will send an itemized Mexican menu quote within 24 hours. You can also write to info@medellincatering.com.