Made with Mexican beer, homemade Clamato Juice, hot sauce, and fresh lime juice, this Easy Michelada Recipe is a light, refreshing, and delicious way to beat the summer heat.
The Michelada
As a child, I never quite understood my mother’s love and devotion to spicy tomato juice beverages. That is, until now.
Now, I literally can’t get enough (aka hangover helpers).
If you’re a fan of the Bloody Mary, then I’ll wager that you’ll also love this savory, spicy, and ultimately incredibly refreshing Michelada recipe. Perfect for brunch or as a light summer cocktail, there’s no wrong time to enjoy the michelada.
What is a Michelada?
The Michelada is a Mexican cerveza preparada- a Mexican cocktail made with a mixture of beer, lime juice, spices, assorted sauces, tomato juice, and chili peppers. Although you will find most Michelada recipes served in a chilled salt-rimmed pint glass, not every Michelada is created equally.
For example, travel through Mexico City and you will most commonly find a Michelada recipe made with beer, lime, salt, and a mix of hot sauces or chili sauces.
Journey to other regions, however, and you may be served a Michelada made with soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, oranges, or Clamato juice (more on Clamato below).
Made with authentic, real, and unprocessed ingredients, this Michelada recipe is one which will hopefully appeal to everyone.
What is the difference between Michelada and Chelada?
The Chelada is what I think of as a much simpler Michelada. Less spicy, and made with less “stuff”, the Chelada requires just a few simple ingredients.
- Chelada – made with a light Mexican lager, lime juice, and salt.
- Michelada – made with a light (or darker) Mexican beer, lime, salt, hot sauces, chili sauces, oranges, tomato juice, etc.
Michelada ingredients
A Michelada can be prepared in several different ways. Depending on where you order your Michelada or what part of Mexico you’re from, you may decide to make this cerveza preparada by adding a few simple ingredients like lime juice, hot sauce, and spices, or, you may choose to add a little of all those things plus Clamato juice.
I chose to make this Michelada with Clamato juice. However, rather than use store-bought Clamato juice, I made my own (more on that in a sec).
- Sea salt + Chili powder. First and foremost, you need to add a little salt to the rim of your glass. Actually, you don’t have to, but traditionally salt is added. You may add just salt or spice things up a bit and add a little chili powder to the mix. This is entirely up to you. If you’re unsure, you can even add the salt to just half of the rim, allowing you to decide how much or how little you really want.
- Limes. I didn’t even write lime juice because I want to make sure it’s clear that you please use fresh lime juice from real limes. Lime juice concentrate tastes like rubbish – please don’t do that to your beer.
- Clamato Juice. I am going to tell you all about this below, but until then, just know that it’s best to make your own. I had intended to make this cocktail with the premade bottled Clamato juice, and then I read the ingredients.
- Hot sauce. I actually added two different hot sauces to this recipe. The first, a habanero hot sauce, went into preparing the Clamato, and the second, Tapatio (my fav), went directly into the Michelada. This recipe, while meant to have a little kick, is not meant to burn your mouth off. Keep this in mind when adding the (drops) of hot sauce to each glass.
- Beer. I have a feeling that some people probably have really strong opinions when it comes to the best beer to use when making Micheladas. Here are a few of my suggestions-
- Tecate
- Negro Modelo
- Sol
- Pacifico
- Corona Extra
What is Clamato?
Now, before I explain how you can make your very own Michelada, I thought you should know why I made a homemade Clamato juice.
But first, does anyone here know what Clamato is?
Clamato ingredients: Tomato Juice Concentrate, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Salt, Citric Acid, Spices, Onion and Garlic Powder, Ascorbic Acid (to maintain color), Dried Clam Broth, Vinegar, Natural Flavors, Red 40, Red Chili Pepper.
Now, I’m not going to devote this post to why we shouldn’t drink bottled, pre-made Clamato. But I did underline the reasons for you above just in case you want to dig a little deeper.
Homemade Clamato Ingredients
After looking at the ingredients I realized there was no way I was going to make myself or any of my family and friends a drink with all that crap in it (sorry, guys, full transparency here) especially when I knew I could make it (or something similar) myself.
- Pure tomato juice. Now I’m not saying it has to be that exact brand, but I do recommend that you take a look at the ingredients and make sure there are no strange things hiding in there. You may also juice your own tomatoes.
- Clam juice. Like a good Bloody Mary Mix, you need clam juice to make a good Michelada. I have no idea how one goes about making clam juice, so this will need to be store-bought.
- Worcestershire sauce. Just another one of those key ingredients in achieving the slightly sweet and somewhat savory tomato juice.
- Tabasco sauce / hot sauce. Super vinegary and spicy, this is my favorite condiment to add to Bloody Marys. I also love it added to homemade Clamato…but with the addition of another hot sauce, like Tapatio.
- Lemon Juice. As with the lime juice, my friends, if you have access to fresh lemons, use them.
- Onion Powder (and Garlic Powder -optional). This is where you can play around and have a little fun with your very own personal Clamato juice. I love a little onion powder, and while I usually add tons of garlic to my recipes, I chose to leave it out of this one. See what works best for your own personals taste and preference.
- Fresh Ground Black Pepper. Nothing better, my friends.
How to make a Michelada
Start by making the Homemade Clamato.
To make the Micheladas
- Mix together the sea salt and chili powder on a small, shallow plate. You may choose to add more or less chili powder depending on your own personal taste and preference.
- Run a lime wedge along the rim of each beer glass and immediately dip them into the sea salt mixture to coat.
- Fill each glass with ice half-way.
- Divide the lime juice and homemade Clamato juice between the two glasses then divide the remaining 1/4 teaspoon chili powder and hot sauce. Mix to combine.
- Top off each glass with your favorite Mexican Lager beer and stir. Garnish with lime wedges or jalapeño wedges, if desired.
Love the Michelada? Try these,
If you try making this Michelada, please leave me a comment and let me know! I always love to hear your thoughts.
For more Mexican-inspired recipes check out,
- 20-Minute Ground Beef Tacos Recipe
- Ground Beef Taco Meat
- Homemade Taco Seasoning Recipe
- Pork Green Chili Recipe with White Beans
- Chicken Mole with Homemade Mole Sauce
- Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe
- Albondigas Soup Recipe (Mexican Meatball Soup)
- Easy Chicken Enchiladas Recipe
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Michelada Recipe (with Homemade Clamato Juice)
Ingredients
For the Clamato Juice
- 2.25 cups unsweetened tomato juice
- 1 cup clam juice
- 2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce - plus more to taste
- 2 tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
For the Micheladas
- 3 tablespoon coarse sea salt
- 1 tbsp + 1/4 tsp chili powder - divided
- ice cubes
- ¼ cup fresh lime juice
- ⅔ cup Homemade Clamato Juice
- 4 drops Hot sauce - plus more to taste
- ⅔ bottle Mexican Lager Beer - approximately 4 ounces each cocktail
Instructions
For the Clamato Juice
- Add all ingredients (tomato juice, clam juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, lemon juice, onion powder, black pepper) for the Clamato juice to a large pitcher. Using a long spoon, mix well to combine. Cover with plastic wrap or seal with a fitted lid until and store in the refrigerator until ready to use.
For the Micheladas
- Mix together the sea salt and chili powder on a small, shallow plate.
- Run a lime wedge along the rim of each beer glass and immediately dip them into the sea salt mixture to coat.
- Fill each glass with ice. Divide the lime juice and homemade Clamato juice between the two glasses. Divide the remaining 1/4 teaspoon chili powder and hot sauce. Mix well to combine.
- Top off each glass with your favorite Mexican Lager beer and stir. Garnish with lime wedges or jalapeño wedges, if desired.
Jessica's Notes
- Nutrition information is for the entire batch of homemade Clamato juice + two Michelada cocktails. As such, the calorie and sodium content per cocktail shown is significantly higher than it would be per cocktail.
Nutritional Information
(Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and specific brands of ingredients used.)
I made this and will make it again with my modifications. I have dietary sodium issues, so i fine tune most recipes. I used a high quality, no salt added, tomato juice. I make my own clam juice from cherry stone clams steamed in Pino Gri wine, and I use a zero sodium hot sauce. I thought it needed something, so I juiced 3 sticks of celery and added the juice. that seemed to be what i was missing. I gave it a 4 because i did not try it as written, but did enjoy my version. I used it for Micheladas and Bloody Ceasers. worked very well in both.
Thanks for the feedback and rating, Peter 🙂
Sugar is missing. How much depends on your taste. There is a great deal of acidity in this recipe and particularly so if you make micheladas with it. You have the citric acid necessary for shelf stable canned tomato juice then lemon juice and lime juice on top of that. You then add a good shake of salt for flavor. None of that is a bad thing per se, but a little sugar goes a long way in harmonizing all of the ingredients. The sweetener is in the commercial product is there for a reason. As a home cook, you can avoid the HFCS and use your sweetener of choice. Subbing some of the salt with an asian fish sauce is another option to add a deeper layer of flavor.
to make clam juice , all you need is to steam open some fresh clams and then strain , reserve the clams for a seafood salad
I use 2 to1 white wine to water with a couple of cloves of chopped garlic for my steamer liquid.
Sounds good but I wish I had exact measurements on the way to make Clamato
The exact measurements are in the recipe card above.
Great to see a recipe for this!! I’ve avoided that nasty list if crap ingredients in the store bought Clamato juices! Can you tell me the shelf life for this juice in the fridge? TIA!
That is a great question Sam, and it’s really hard to say as everyone has different conditions in their kitchen and refrigerator. My best guess would be about a week or so 🙂
Great,! Ya, I guess you have a good point, but I appreciate the guesstimate! Excited to give it a try!
Hello friends, its fantastic article on the topic of educationand fully explained, keep it up all the time.
Thanks for the Clamato recipe! I love that you reject all the wacko ingredients!
Thanks Martha 🙂
The sodium on the nutrition is higher than actual I think. I weighed mine out and used just under 1ml per glass which was only 1/5 a tsp and around 400 mg of salt per mixed drink. At any rate, as I went through the recipe and only totaling what I used I found mine to be 1910 mg sodium for the whole recipe or 955 per drink.
Regardless it taste very good. Nice recipe.
It looks like they are taking into account the 3 tablespoons of salt for rimming.
That would be correct Peter 🙂
It doesn’t give the amounts in volume.
Hi Michael,
Please scroll down to the recipe card and you will see the amounts in volumes – or click here 🙂 : https://theforkedspoon.com/clamato-michelada-recipe/#wprm-recipe-container-46403
Finally, a decent recipe!
Agreed! Also highly recommend Lava Michelada Mix, which is the best michelada mix I have had in a long time. Cheers!