Does Isabel Eats Offer Mexican Ingredient Guides and Cooking Tips?
Updated
Yes. Isabel Eats publishes a "Kitchen Tips" section of ingredient guides alongside its recipes, and it also offers a free email series called "5 Secrets to Mexican Cooking." The site is built around traditional Mexican, Mexican-inspired, and Tex-Mex cooking, so the guides are written to support the recipes rather than stand alone as reference material.
What the ingredient guides cover
The Kitchen Tips articles shown on the site include:
- Mexican Oregano — a guide to the herb itself
- Epazote – All About The Mexican Herb — an introduction to a less familiar Mexican herb
- What Is Cotija Cheese? Ingredients, Substitutes, and Recipes — a guide that goes beyond description into substitution and use
- Oaxaca Cheese — a guide to another Mexican cheese
The Cotija entry is a useful signal for what to expect from the format: an explanation of what the ingredient is, what you can use instead if you can't find it, and recipes that call for it. That structure is more practical than a plain definition, because it answers the question a cook usually has — "I can't get this, now what?"
Cooking tips beyond individual ingredients
The site also carries a broader Kitchen Tips category, and the homepage promotes a free email series, 5 Secrets to Mexican Cooking, described as tips to help you "master Mexican meals at home in no time." Signing up requires a name and email address.
If you want a larger, structured collection, the site offers a set of three ebooks — Essentials, Main Dishes, and Drinks & Desserts — described as 120 selected classic and popular Mexican recipes. The homepage links to a page for purchasing copies; pricing is not stated in the material available here, so check that page directly before deciding.
How to use the guides alongside the recipes
The most efficient approach is to treat the Kitchen Tips articles as companions to specific dishes rather than as a course:
- Pick a recipe you want to make — for example, something calling for Cotija or Oaxaca cheese.
- Read the matching ingredient guide to learn what the ingredient is and what substitutes work.
- Check the guide's linked recipes if you want more ways to use what you bought.
This matters most for ingredients that are hard to source or easy to confuse. Epazote and Mexican oregano, for instance, are both herbs with distinct flavors that don't map cleanly onto their more common counterparts, so reading the guide before shopping avoids a wasted trip.
What this means for you
If your goal is to understand Mexican ingredients before cooking with them, the Kitchen Tips section plus the email series covers that ground at no stated cost for the email signup. If you want a self-contained reference you can cook from repeatedly, the ebook collection is the more structured option — but confirm the current price and contents on the purchase page, since that information isn't included in what's shown here.