A family kitchen that grew up, but never grew out of the recipe.

“Like Water for Chocolate”, in a Texas kitchen

Every family that makes tamales has a matriarch. Ours had several, and they cooked the way the women in Like Water for Chocolate cook: with their whole attention, with ingredients they trusted, and with the belief that food carries what you put into it. The recipes came down generation to generation, hand to hand, never written down properly and never needing to be.

Maggie’s first tamales were for family. Then for friends, who told friends. Then for a Saturday order list that grew until it needed a real kitchen. Today that kitchen is in Plano, and the tamales that leave it are the same ones that came off a family stove, only more of them.

What we refuse to change

Fresh, from scratch, every time. The masa is made the morning it is used. The pork and chicken are slow-cooked in our kitchen. The chiles are toasted and blended that day. Nothing comes out of a bucket.

100% natural ingredients. We source the finest meats and chiles in Texas, and now and then a specialty chile that came up from Mexico in grandpa’s suitcase. No kidding.

Gluten-free masa. Corn, not wheat, the way tamales were always meant to be. It matters to more of our customers every year.

BIG tamales, meat first. Reviewers call them “huge” and “packed with meat”. That is the recipe, not an accident.

What we are, and what we are not

We are a catering and delivery kitchen. We are not a restaurant: there is no dining room and no line. Orders are placed and paid in our online store, then delivered or picked up at our Plano kitchen; the address and pickup time come with your order confirmation. That focus is why the tamales are what they are. A half dozen for lunch or dozens for an office, a party, a wedding or a holiday table: every order goes through the same online store.

We serve Allen, McKinney, Fairview, Frisco, The Colony, Plano, Murphy, Carrollton, Addison, Richardson and Far North Dallas, and we are grateful for every one of the 600+ people who took the time to leave a Google review. Every one of them is five stars, and we work every morning to keep it that way.