This churros recipe is astonishingly easy, and makes a truly great churros that’s hot and crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside. The molten chocolate dipping sauce is mandatory, and you’ll have an entire batch on the table in a mere 20 minutes!
BONUS: Churros are great for making ahead, making it a great party dessert.
Churros recipe
Up until several years ago, this churros obsessed food blogger thought Churros was native to Mexico. Thus on her first (but certianly not last) trip to Mexico, she was expecting to be in churro heaven. Churros, churros, churros everywhere.
But no. I barely saw churro at all.
Duh. Churro isn’t native to Mexico. It’s Spanish!🤦🏻♀️
So just as tourists here in Australia wonder why there aren’t kangaroos bounding around on the streets of Sydney and koalas snuggled in trees everywhere, I guess I totally missed the Churro memo.
Having said that though, it is actually very popular in the touristy areas of Mexico!!
We don’t break out the deep fryer very often around here. But with the promise of hot crispy churros waiting on the other side, and also because we only need to shallow fry rather than deep fry like when making things like Fried Chicken, we deem churros to be Fry-Worthy.
Also, it’s FRY-day today.😂 (FRIday) Admit it, you laughed!!
What goes in churros
All you need is flour, baking powder, oil and boiling water to make the batter, then cinnamon and sugar for coating.
Boiling water is key here – it makes the batter a unique “gummy” texture so when piped and cooked, it retains the signature ridges. There’s no sugar in the batter – with the cinnamon sugar coating plus mandatory dipping sauce, you absolutely don’t need it.
What does churros taste like?
They taste like cinnamon doughnuts – but BETTER because you’ve got crispy ridges. The inside is fluffy like a doughnut and they are at their prime freshly made, but they reheat exceptionally well too making them a great make ahead for parties!
How to make churros
The batter is a mere dump-and-mix job, and it’s got a unique thick “gummy” texture so the churros holds its form when it’s piped, even before it hits the oil.
The safest and easiest way to cook churros is to use scissors. Because the batter is so thick, you can pipe the batter out and it will hang from the piping bag as you lower it into the oil (as opposed to dropping out, causing the oil to splash), then just snip with scissors.
How long to make them
They come in varying lengths, with longer ones (ie 30cm / 1 foot) being more of a novelty type at carnivals and tourist hot spots. Around 15cm / 6″ is a more practical length – still long enough to look impressive, but short enough to cook in a standard size household pot.
You could also make shorter ones for small bite size options, and if you don’t have a piping bag, just drop balls of dough into the oil and make churros doughnuts!
How to serve churros
I know this might sound like an odd section to include for those of you with extensive churros eating experience – but actually, churros is not so common here in Australia so let me describe how to eat it!
It’s traditionally a street snack, so you buy one long one or a little paper cup with a few shorter ones in it, then eat it while walking around on the street. Managing a dipping sauce while on the move can become a bit tricky, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.
At home, I just pile them up on a platter with a little cup of the dipping sauce, then you just dunk and eat!
Don’t count the churros and compare to what the recipe says it will make. I’ll just tell you now – there’s two missing!
How to REHEAT Churros!
As with anything deep fried, churros are at their prime when they’re freshly made. They stay warm and crisp for around 20 minutes once they come out of the oil, which is ample time to cook a whole batch, coat in cinnamon sugar then serve.
After 30 minutes or so, they soften. And though, like doughnuts, they are still delicious when cold and soft, it’s definitely worth popping them in the oven to reheat and more importantly, crisp up again.
And if you are making these ahead intentionally (as opposed to just reheating leftovers), store the churros WITHOUT the sugar coating – this will make them reheat to near freshly cooked perfection, then just roll in the cinnamon sugar and serve! – Nagi x
PS BONUS: Churros impresses people. “You MADE these??!” *She beams with pride, making a weak attempt to hide her glee*😂
Watch how to make it
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Churros Recipe
Ingredients
Cinnamon Sugar Coating
- 1/4 cup caster / superfine sugar
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
Churros
- 1 cup flour, plain / all purpose (Note 1)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 1 tbsp vegetable, canola or olive oil (not extra virgin olive oil)
- 1 cup boiling water
- 2 cups+ vegetable or canola oil , for frying
Chocolate Sauce
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate or semi sweet chocolate chips (Note 2)
- 1/2 cup thickened / heavy cream (heavy cream)
Instructions
- Cinnamon sugar coating: Combine sugar and cinnamon in a shallow bowl, set aside.
- Batter: Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add oil and water and mix until just combined – it should be a thick, gummy batter, like a wet sticky dough, not thin and watery.
- Piping bag: Transfer dough into a piping bag with a 8mm / 1/3" star tip nozzle. Set aside while oil heats.
- Heat oil: Heat 5cm / 2" oil over medium high in a small pot, wok or small but deep skillet (Note 3) to 170°C/340°F, or until it takes 20 seconds for a small cube of bread to turn golden.
- Pipe & snip: Pipe 15cm / 6" lengths of dough into the oil, snipping with scissors (snip close to oil surface to avoid splash). Do 3 to 4 per batch, makes 10 to 12 in total.
- Cook: Cook for 2-3 minutes or until golden and crisp, rolling occasionally.
- Drain: Remove onto paper towel lined plate to drain. Then roll in sugar. Serve hot with Chocolate Sauce!
Chocolate Sauce:
- Place in a heatproof bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring in between, until smooth. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool and thicken slightly.
Recipe Notes:
Originally published 2016. Long overdue for fresh new photos, brand new process steps and video!
More recipes that are easier than you think
A few more recipes people assume are too hard, but are much easier than you think!
Life of Dozer
He’s not allowed in the shoot room when I deep fry – and he ain’t happy about it!
And from the original publication date in 2016:
Caved. ☺️
Hi ! I am so pleased to find your recipe. We run a Supper Club from home & recklessly put Churros on the menu. Nightmare! – The last few times I’ve burst so many piping bags and then at the opposite end of the scale faffed around with recipes that were just too runny.
I’ve got another gropu next weekend who’ve requested it so fingers crossed your recipe will be the one !! Reviews look good.
Love to know how it goes Pip!
Easiest churro recipe I’ve ever followed! Munching as I type 🙂
YUM! I could go for some churros now!
Nagi, you are a star! Thank you for putting up such detailed instructions. Why are you not on Masterchef?
The churros were really good and very easy to make!
That’s great to hear Mason!
Thank you so much! The recipe is easy and great, and you made my day! i can totally relate to the churros hunting experience, I was doing the same in Spain – it turns out in Basque Country they don’t make churros…
I’m so glad you loved this recipe Simona!!
Nagi…
Just want to say thank you for the recipe! 🙂 It’s soooo good! Will always be using your recipe!
Thanks so much Stefie!
This recipe looks fantastic – I made the Ricotta Spinach bake last night – another huge hit and on my dinner recipe list now!!! Weird question though… I need to buy a new Wok – I have a non stick one – but on most of the recipe videos the Wok looks “less fancy but far more effective” Any tips for the new purchase will be great!!!
Hi Nagi,
I love all of your recipes but as a Spanish I have to do a remake. The original “Spanish churros” do not contain cinnamon. They just use sugar. Actually for the “chocolate sauce”, we always have a lovely cup of chocolate ( we call it chocolate de la Casa o chocolate francés) but we never use chocolate sauce like you showed in your recipe. People made variations and I understand that very well but I thought that it will be good for the people to know exactly the original way.
Thank you to share your recipes. My little son loved the” Easter chocolate cake” and so everybody in the family did. Thanks a lot. God bless you and your family.
Big kisses
Rosalia
Thanks so much for clarifying Rosalia!
At a local Mexican restaurant here, they serve Cajeta sauce, which is a super-thick caramel sauce made from goat milk. If you prefer caramel to chocolate and you have access to a Mexican grocery store and can find it there, it’s fantastic. You could also sub dulce de leche.
Sounds divine Linda!
If you were in Mexico you would probably have had churros with cajeta sauce injected inside the churro. They seem to make them slightly differently over there.
Hi Nagi,
This is an amazing recipe. Thank you so much for sharing. We also added a cap of vanilla essence and half a cap lemon essence.
However I had to cook a larger batch for a family gathering and doubled the ingredients (but without the lemon essence) and it didn’t taste the same. It tasted a lot like fish and chip batter. Do you think it could’ve been too much baking powder or oil in the batter?
Hi James, were you using fresh oil to cook them? – N x
Hi Nagi,
Yes we were using fresh vegetable oil! 🙂
We found that when we followed the original recipe, we only added 1 TBSP of oil to the batter, but realised our mistake when making our second batch (which we also doubled to make more) and added 2 x TSBP of oil.
James
Sorry I mean we added 1 x tea spoon to the first batch, but when we doubled ingrediants for the second batch, we added 2 x table spoons.
Hi Nagi,
This is an amazing recipe. Thank you so much. We also added a cap of vanilla essence and half a cap lemon essence.
However I had to cook a larger batch for a family gathering and doubled the ingredients (but without the lemon essence) and it didn’t taste the same. It tasted a lot like fish and chip batter. Do you think it could’ve been too much baking powder or oil in the batter?
I’m so glad you loved them Caroline!
This recipe turned out amazingly well for me! The churros were easy to make and really delicious. As for the making ahead premise of the post, I beg to differ. Although I tried playing around with raising and lowering the oven temperature and increasing/decreasing the bake time, these absolutely do not reheat well at all, unless your definition of reheating well is “nothing remotely resembling the original texture.” So while these are great to make, do not make ahead. They are by far best enjoyed fresh.
Hi Nagi,
Thankyou for the amazing recipes 🙂
I’m so glad you loved them, and yes – anything is better made fresh! I found mine reheated ok though ☺️ (not that I usually keep them as I normally eat them all!!)
This recipe doesn’t;t work for me. The batter is far too watery, resembling pancake batter. I weighed out the water and flour. could there be a typo on the recipe? please help!
Hi Glenda – I’m sorry to hear that, I wish I could have been there to help troubleshoot! I am confident the recipe is right, I have made it many times myself and if you read comments below, plenty of other people have too. You didn’t accidentally add the frying oil into the batter, did you???
Is it possible to use condensed milk instead of thick cream?
Yes!! great idea!
Yum! If you warm up your cream and then stir your chocolate chips in, you are less likely to overheat the chocolate (which results in a grainy, unpleasant texture). In my experience, you can never be too careful with chocolate!
I love this recipe! Thank you for sharing!
These are ridiculously delicious. My kids (and extended nieces/nephews) were in love with the Disneyland version. Ha – No more! Aunty (courtesy of Nagi) makes the best churros around. Can’t ask for more than that – thank you!
Hi Nagi!
Can I use the same oil in the dough that I use for frying?
Also, is a flavourless oil something like Canola or vegetable oil?
Thanks!
Yep! I tried using vegetable oil, and they turned out great! Churros are one of my favorite treats ever, so haveing a Mexican bakery I back them a lot!
Just made this churros recipe. They tasted amazing just like the ones you buy in the Mexican bakery except fresher and more tender. Recipe was also easy. No dough cooking required only boiling water before the frying. I’ve tried the choux pastry based recipes and I didn’t like the eggy taste. Definitely a keeper!