27 Mexican Desserts That Won't Challenge You As Much As Flan—Unless You're Into That

If you're celebrating Cinco de Mayo, taco Tuesday, or are just having a Mexican-themed weeknight dinner, don't forget about dessert! Instead, take inspiration from our 21 Mexican-inspired desserts to make your fiesta extra sweet.

There are a few main standout flavors among the Mexican desserts we’ve highlighted here. First up is sweet and mellow dulce de leche. If you’re unfamiliar, dulce de leche is very similar to caramel, but because there’s no sugar involved, there’s none of the finickiness of hitting the right level of caramelization (yep, no candy thermometer!). We love it here as a topping for our rumchata cupcakes or cheesecake, as a filling for churro cookies (made simple with puff pastry), or even as a dip for churro chips.

If you love Mexican food, it’s likely you’re into spicy food too. From taco seasoning, chipotles in adobo, and Valentina hot sauce, there’s lots of options for adding heat to your Mexican dishes, and that holds true for desserts too. One of our favorite Mexican condiments is spicy, pickled chamoy, so we added it to a mango sorbet. Trust us, the sweet, tangy spicy flavor combo works! We love spicy sweet Mexican hot chocolate too, so we turned it into a fluffy Mexican hot chocolate mousse pie that kind of tastes like a peppery s’mores. Want the spice without the heat? Go extra crazy with the cinnamon in your desserts, like our cinnamon sugar churros, our tres leches cake, or our sopapilla cheesecake bars. For true Mexican authenticity, go with ceylon cinnamon, which is slightly sweeter than its other counterparts.

And we can’t forget about one of our favorite Mexican flavor combinations: tequila and lime. Made famous, of course, by the classic margarita cocktail, we love it in desserts too, like our margarita cheesecake mousse or margarita bars. We’ve even got a frozen margarita pie. Think key lime pie, but with tequila. Want even more tequila? Try our fried tequila shots—we dip angel food cake in tequila and lime, then fry them. Your party guests will love them!

Speaking of, it’s not a Mexican food night without drinks—check out our lists of our favorite Cinco de Mayo cocktails or Mexican beers for ideas.