The Absolute Best Dessert Pairings For Tamales

Once you've put in all the effort to make your own tamales, you might want to plan a whole meal — perhaps even a dinner party — to showcase them. After selecting a few sides such as refried beans and street corn plus a few beverages like horchata or margarita mocktails, you'll also need to decide what to make for dessert. Sweet tamales are a thing, but Rick Martínez, author of "Mi Cocina," says you don't need to go to the trouble of steaming another batch of masa dough. Instead, he recommends complementing the tamales with a simple fruit salad.

Martínez suggests chopping up some pineapple and mango — and maybe adding a little jícama for crunch. He says all you need for flavoring the fruit is lime juice and Tajín or chamoy, although you might want to add a little sugar, too. "The fruit here [in Mexico] is stupidly sweet," Martínez says, explaining there's one variety of pineapple called piña de miel (syrup pineapple) that tastes like it's been soaked in sugar water. For this reason, he says Mexican fruit can make for a standalone dessert.

If you have a real sweet tooth and fruit salad for dessert simply won't do, Rick Martínez recommends a few more Mexican-style desserts. "Tres leches," he says, "would be amazing," and you can always have your fruit salad on the side or use sliced pineapple and mango to decorate the top of the cake. If you're into fusion cuisine, you might also like to try two Mexican-American hybrid desserts: pan dulce conchas cupcakes and simple sopapilla cheesecake.

A Mexican chocolate cake (or cupcakes) would be perfect for a tamale dinner, because chocolate desserts can enhance nearly every meal. Martínez suggests Mexican chocolate brownies but says these don't have to be made from scratch. "You could honestly even use a box mix and then just doctor it up," he tells us, suggesting the addition of Mexican chocolate along with spices such as cayenne, cinnamon, chili powder, and cloves. If you really want to gild the lily, swirl some dulce de leche or cajeta (a sweet caramel sauce made from goat's milk) into your batter.