What to use instead of guajillo chiles
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Colour and body in a blended red chile sauce
Rehydrated and blended, the skins give the sauce its clear red and most of its thickness. The heat is mild, so guajillo is doing fruit and colour rather than burn.
Dried New Mexico or California chilesRan out
1:1 by count
Nearly the same job with a shade less tang and a little more sweetness. The sauce comes out more orange than crimson.
Dried ancho chilesRan out
1:1 by count
Darker, raisiny and sweeter, and the sauce goes brown-red. Anchos carry more flesh, so it also thickens more.
Dried pasilla chilesRan out
1:1 by count
Cocoa and prune in place of bright fruit, and the finished sauce reads nearly black. Good in birria, muddy in camarones.
Sweet paprika plus cayenneRan out
2 tbsp paprika + 1/4 tsp cayenne per 4 guajillos
Colour and a rough approximation of the heat. No pulp at all, so thicken with a corn tortilla in the blender or the sauce stays watery.
What doesn't work: Chipotles in adobo. They are smoked jalapenos in vinegar sauce, so you get smoke and sharp acid where guajillo gives clean fruit, and two of them will out-heat six guajillos.
Toasted chile flavour before the liquid goes in
Thirty seconds a side on a dry comal blisters the sugars in the skin, and the finished sauce tastes roasted rather than raw and green.
Guajillo powder toasted dry in the panRan out
2 tbsp powder per 4 whole chiles
Toasts in 20 seconds and burns by 40. Scorched powder is bitter with no way back, so keep it moving.
Ancho chilesRan out
1:1 by count
Thicker and moister, so they take closer to a minute a side and the toasted note comes through sweeter.
Arbol chiles alongside fewer guajillosRan out
2 arbols + 3 guajillos in place of 5 guajillos
Same toasting behaviour and several times the heat. Thin skins catch fire faster, so pull them first.
What doesn't work: Toasting until they smell strong. Guajillo goes bitter the moment the skin browns past mahogany, and one over-toasted chile ruins a whole blender of sauce.
Stem and seed them before soaking. The seeds hold the bitterness and they never blend smooth.