Champurrado Is My New Favorite Hot Cocoa, and It Takes Just Four Ingredients to Make
This hot chocolate drink uses masa harina to add thickness and plenty of flavor.
Champurrado is a thick and creamy hot beverage whose major flavor and thickening ingredient is masa harina, nixtamalized corn flour. This Mexican staple is sweet, comforting, completely satisfying, and relatively simple to make with just a few ingredients and a whisk. If you haven’t come across it yet, allow me to introduce you to this winter beverage that drinks like a meal.
What is champurrado?
Champurrado is also called an atole, which is any masa-based beverage—but champurrado specifically is enjoyed sweetened with sugar, and flavored with chocolate, cinnamon, or other seasonings. You might think, like other hot chocolates out there, that the cocoa would be the flavor diva in this drink, but masa harina is the unexpected star here. It's rather well known as a special kind of finely ground corn flour used to make the dough for recipes like tortillas, pupusas, or tamales, but perhaps less often touted for its role in a satisfying hot drink.
Unlike wheat flour, masa harina doesn’t contain gluten, so mixing it into water or milk doesn’t cause rubbery strands or clumps of gluten to develop. The corn flour disperses easily—not to say that you can’t get lumps, but more tips on preventing that below. The starches absorb the available liquid and create a thick, spoonable, almost pudding-like consistency when heated (which you can control with more or less water). The drink boasts the nutty, earthy flavors of corn, and once you add sugar and chocolate to that, you have yourself an undeniable morning treat.
How to make champurrado
This Mexican staple requires only four ingredients, but you can get a bit fancy with the flavors if you’d like to add a pinch of salt, a dash of cinnamon, or a star anise pod. I truly recommend using chopped panela, also called piloncillo (unrefined cane sugar), as your sweetener because the flavor is so lovely, but you can use brown sugar if that’s what you have access to. Likewise, Mexican chocolate has its own subtly spiced flavor profile, but if you can’t find it then you can substitute a broken up semi-sweet chocolate bar, or omit it and simply make a cinnamon atole.
To ensure the smoothest possible consistency, be sure to whisk frequently, especially in the beginning when it thickens quickly. You can also run an immersion blender through the mixture at the end which has two benefits: aeration and smoothing out any lumps.
Take a second and taste your champurrado before serving. I use Abuelita chocolate here which includes sugar, so depending on the chocolate you use, you may end up adding more or less panela than I have. Ditto that with adjusting the thickness to your own personal preference. I prefer drinking it thin, but if its a good day and I have cookies on hand (like today) then I enjoy dipping them in a thicker champurrado.
Champurrado Recipe
Ingredients:
¼ cup masa harina
2 cups water (or substitute milk)
¾ Abuelita Mexican hot chocolate tablet, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped panela sugar
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
1. Put the masa harina into a medium sized pot and slowly pour in 1 cup of water as you whisk thoroughly. Toss in the cinnamon stick (if using), chocolate, and sugar, and turn the heat on medium-low. Continue whisking. The mixture will start to thicken within a minute or two.
2. Keep whisking and pour in the rest of the water. The mixture will continue to thicken as it cooks over the next five to eight minutes. Taste the champurrado and adjust the thickness with more water if necessary, and the sweetness with sugar.
3. Run an immersion blender through the mixture to aerate it slightly (or give it a vigorous whisking) and serve immediately.
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