I will die on the hill of: the best tamales you will ever have, will come from the trunk of a car. And yeah somewhere around $2 to $4 per tamale usd seems to be standard throughout the US.
My coworkers used to always say I'd regret stuff like that. Boiled peanuts out of a pot in the yard, brisket sandwich from a rundown shack, tamales out of the trunk of a car... if your grill or smoker is an old 55g drum... Yeah I'm going to want to try whatever you're making. Not saying restaurant chefs don't put love in their work... It's just something different between the two types, and I'm willing to risk it.
Edit: you will pay more if in a restaurant and getting them as a meal. The above price is for just tamales.
I know a girl Dalia that makes them then delivers them to you. Or she was doing it during covid, same deal with salsa.
I forget the cost but it was more like 4/10, but they were like meant to cook, not ready to eat.
I don't order ready to eat tamales ever.
Mexican restaurants and grocery stores will sell them here. $38 for four is insane. They must know they're the only game in town. There are dozens of recipes online - you might as well just make them yourself.
Yeah, I can order masa online. corn husks are expensive but the Asian grocery sells banana leaves to wrap. I hear they use those in Baja (and in Guatemala according to another comment).
They do add a distinct flavor, but I don't recall it being 'banana-y'. The ones I had were nacatamales, a specialty of Nicaragua, and a meal in themselves, full of meat, veg, and savory elements like olives and raisins. Unfortunately, the restaurant where I enjoyed them closed after a year or two. One day, if I have enough ambition, I will try to recreate them. [https://www.internationalcuisine.com/nicaraguan-nacatamales/](https://www.internationalcuisine.com/nicaraguan-nacatamales/)
Corn Husks are the most well known ones yet, various cultures use Banana Leaves. My parents are Salvadoran and my mom's Tamales use banana leaves instead of corn Husks. This causes the exterior of the tamales to be a lot more moist
My cleaning lady makes them for me. I think she expects like $2-$3 bucks apiece, but I just give her a hundred for the 25 she brings. Edit… I asked my wife and she said she sells them for $2.
We got some from a lady in a parking lot yesterday, like 4 for $10.
Or if I get them from a coworker or neighbor they’re cheaper but I’m happy to overpay. My friend’s family makes Guatemalan tamales every Christmas and she only asks for like $1/each.
The typical ones I usually get from a tamale lady or guy in a parking lot are smaller, wrapped in corn husks, etc, usually vegetarian (peppersand cheese), chicken, or pork chile verde.
The Guatemalan tamales I usually get are larger, more moist, wrapped in banana leaves (the masa has a lil bit of a diff texture too), and in addition to chicken or pork filling they can include some unexpected (to me) ingredients like green olives and sometimes raisins.
You don't find tamales, tamales find you. And then you pay the lady, or dude, not very much to be happy forever. You exchange numbers. And you call when you need tamales.
It's one of the rare, truly beautiful phenomenons in this world.
One time I got some for $2 each from a dude on a horse with a cooler full of them who had illegally crossed the border into Big Bend National Park specifically to sell tamales to hikers. It was delicious
Don't know the conversion for US$ vs AUS$ but my go-to place is $3 for one, $9 for six, and 16$ for a dozen. I like to add cheese and green chili to smother it.
In Chicago there was Tamale Man. He’d go from bar to bar around 1am selling the best tamales I’ve ever had. It was like $6 for 5 of them back in 2010 or so but I assume prices have gone up since then.
IF I’m not getting them from a coworkers abuela… there are several amazing places in the city (benefits of living in Texas) but my favorite place it’s about $15/dozen
Edited it add: my amount was in US dollars, converted to AUS is $22.50/dozen
The tamales aren't advertised but my favorite bar keeps them in stock for drunks that need a quick bite. $3 per tamale and they are heaven on earth. I'm incredibly uncomfortable with your post because tamales are not made with tortillas, so I don't know what's going on there.
Tamales are made with masa and are steamed so maybe it's a mistake that you called them tortillas.
The best tamales are the ones sold out of the back of a car or the back of a bar. If you can find a Mexican grocery, and if it has a little lunch counter hidden in the back, you are in *fucking luck* and it's the best food you've ever had.
Maybe I should clarify. They make their own masa fresh from grinding the corn and press their tortillas from the fresh masa while still moist. On rare occasions, they run a special and use their masa to make tamales.
I can sometimes buy their tortillas in packs of 8 from a store near me, but they are often out. If I get down to Melbourne, I can buy kg packs of tortillas from the restaurant. I usually split the packs up to vacuum pack and freeze most.
I could go to a nearby restaurant and get 2 for 16 bucks and it would come with rice and beans. With a drink and tip it'd come to maybe 25. At Christmas time I can probably get a dozen for 30-40 bucks from people that advertise on reddit. The restaurant ones tend to be quite large, it is a full meal. The homemade ones tend to be a little smaller. Given the exchange rate that price seems insane.
$2 or $3 from people selling them from the trunk of their car in supermarket parking lots here in Southern California.
They smell amazing and hell on earth when you're avoiding carbs
$8.95 (AU $13.39) for 3 in sauce of choice, served with beans, rice, guac, queso, sour cream, lettuce, tomato, onion and two tortillas.
That said, making tamales at home is pretty easy or if feeling lazy most women who sell tamales on the side of the road/parking lots is a $10 (AU $14.96) dozen. Our larger grocer and smaller ones usually sell cold tamales for $7.45-10.49 (AU $11.14-$15.69) per dozen depending on size and various fillings. Grocery deli warm tamales usually go for $9.99 (AU $14.94) for a dozen.
Those prices are better than SoCal restaurant prices. Three tamales with all that, way over there? And only like 6-7k Mexicans in the whole of Aus?
Unless it’s the worst Mexican food in the entire world, that’s a deal.
I got some good ones from a fundraiser for $2 a piece. I also got some for free from my friends dad who’s a chef. The max I’ve spent is like $4 a piece.
Bakersfield, California - maybe $2 each. There's a Mexican supermarket chain called Vallarta, and they have a few different styles. One of those stores in a more Hispanic neighborhood sees an old Mexican woman in the parking lot selling even better ones. Sometimes, you'll get a family that sells them door to door around Thanksgiving and Christmas for $20-30/dozen. One year we made our own with store-bought masa from Vallarta, but everything else was done by us: meat, spices, additional flavor mixed into the masa.
If you like them, they're not terribly difficult to make, and you can make so many for cheap that you can give them away to friends or sell them.
They are often sold for about 2-3$ around Southern California. But they do vary so much on the type of meat, amount of meat, size of tamal and wether it’s made using banana vs corn leaf.
Also of course some tamales are many times better than others. It’s rare to find a terrible one but it’s hard to find a great one.
You're paying 5.76 USD per tamale. I live far away from Mexico so I pay more than Americans who live closer. $4 per tamale, I get them at a Honduras restaurant.
I stockpile them around Christmas when our extended family makes massive batches, everyone usually takes a couple dozen or so and throws them in the freezer. Ironically, we just finished ours off this week.
You can buy them here in bakeries, Mexican supermarkets, or if you’re brave, from the lady selling them in the Wal-Mart parking lot lol. A lot
of vendors sell them on the street in the morning for workers, or sell by word of mouth.
Usually you buy them by the half dozen or dozen. I see a big Mexican supermarket near me is selling them for $25 for a dozen, and that seems high to me. Definitely cheaper at a panaderia or from a lady selling them. The answer though is that we stockpile them from Christmas
See if you can get some of that masa and make some champurrado!
Depends on the type. There's 4 by me, three are traditional and one is restaurant style. The restaurant style is weird and kinda sucks lol. Or at least I haven't hade/seen/heard of a good one.
Of the other three types, they are fairly cheap. I can get a dozen for 12 bucks now, used to be a lot cheaper. But the really good ones are 13/14 a half dozen, but are twice as fat and way more flavorful. The spicy Verde chicken ones are absolutely amazing!! But super spicy as well. Id put them 1.5x-2.0x franks hot sauce (completely arbitrary scale I just made up lol)
$34 AUS is about $22 USD. I mean guess that's a bit high but if they're making scratch with special in-hosue ingredients, I could see that being a reasonable price.
For grocery store tamales they're usually like $3-4 each. It may range from lunch service at a counter at a Mexican grocery store to some lady in the parking lot selling frozen home-made tamales from her van.
If they are authentic like homemade masa and homemade fillings it’s incredibly labor intensive and takes multiple days to make them.
It depends whether or not if they’re the only show in a 50mile radius.
They can be expensive especially around holidays.
They can be expensive depending on the filling.
They can be very expensive if it’s a restaurant compared to someone selling it out of their car or home.
That's fair enough. I would have to drive 2 and a half hours each way and pay a toll. Almost worth it.
I tried huitlacoche filling when I visited DC a year ago. They were small but good
I live in Texas so we probably have more access to tamales than most other states. But as an example I just checked my grocery store app and they had 12 packs on sale for about $10.
Obviously that's not restaurant prices though.
Wherever I happen to live, I always seek out the lady or couple that sells them out of a van at the laundromat or grocery store, or a cooler walking down the street. For years I've never paid more than like $2-3 per tamal and they're the best you'll ever have. I've never had good tamales at a restaurant.
Here in town we have a Mexican family that owns 4 restaurants, 1 in my town, 3 in neighboring towns. They charge $8.50 for 3 tamales and you can add a 4th tamale for another $2.95. But you can dance and sing karaoke with the owner for free.
In my old neighborhood, people would come door to door or roll around in a truck selling homemade tamales. Now I usually get them from a friend whose mom or wife or neighbor makes them. Usually around 3 or 4 for $10 or so now.
I live in Washington state and a friend of mine at work has a grandmother that sells tamales for $25/dozen. They are delicious. She brings them in fresh from the kitchen on Fridays right before we close. They're still warm.
As a Texan; I can hear the tamale lady in HEB walking around chanting “Tamales!! Tamales!! Tamales!!! Come get your fresh tamales!!!”
I have a reusable HEB insulated bag with that printed on it.
We get them at Christmas for $1.62 each at a place called La Casita. You have to get there super early cause they always sell out. Their website says they make 12,000/day.
$20 for a dozen from the lady who sells them in the parking lot of the local gas station. She has been there for at least a decade during peak tamales season.
My friends grandma (Mexican) makes them. $15 a dozen. Pretty standard for tamale guys to come through the bars late night selling tamales from their trunks.
You're paying how much? Tamales are just Masa Harina, filling, corn, and whatever you put on top. Yeah, there is absolutely no world in which paying 34 USD is worth it.
Uhhhh, I normally buy them for $20 for a half dozen from the cart lady.
Or if I'm available, I hit up the abuelita down the street, and if I help in the process to make them, she gives me a dozen for free and sells them cheaper than normal to me if I want more. There's normally like 6 of us, and we normally make like 300 or 400. She sells whatever we aren't paid for our work.
Abuelita normally only makes them in the fall/winter.
The store has premade ones you throw in the oven not boxed like handmade and packed into like to go containers. Those are like $10 if I had to guess for like 5. Any Mexican food restaurant serves em and to be fair you just need to find the right restaurant because domes aren’t the best. I always tip the places I love the most though.
Costco sells acceptable ones for about $3 each, frozen. But I don't live in one of those places where you can just get tamales for $1 out of a cooler at the gas station or from someone's trunk outside Home Depot (been there, done both). So we make them at home. It's not hard and the ingredients are cheap, at least in the US; I'd guess they are <$.50/each when we make two dozen chicken or pork. All you need really is meat/spices for filling, masa, lard, and corn husks., plus seasonings/chlilis that we have in the pantry. Here's [an example recipe.](https://www.isabeleats.com/pork-tamales/#recipe)
We use pork butt for most of our Mexican cooking as it's usually<$2/lb here and we got a *lot* of meat from cooking one.
Very easy to get them on Facebook marketplace. Especially on the weekends. Not saying that's necessarily a good idea (to buy food from a stranger), but you can.
I just looked and they're $2 or $3 each. One person sells a dozen for $7.
If I want a tamale there's a restaurant near work. There's a large Hispanic population in the neighborhood. They sell them for about $7 -$10 each, depending on what you get.
The tamaleria in Detroit where we buy our holiday tamales (my family rarely makes them now) sells them for $14.50 per dozen, cash only. Another local tamaleria sells them for $12 per dozen.
I haven’t had a good tamale since 1973. There was a Mexican grocery that had fresh tamales every Tuesday and they were the absolute best thing I have ever eaten.
Guy who sells at the farmer's market out of coolers but also has a restaurant. Does home delivery too (grocery sacks on the doorstep). Matter of fact, haven't bought from him in awhile. Should do that.
Enchiladas are $19 for a 6 pack and tamales are $17 for a 6 pack, all individually wrapped and frozen.
Right?! My family's preferred tamaleria sells them for $14.50 per dozen. It's a tiny, family-owned operation with a tiny building, basically just a kitchen and small waiting room, but the latter has been closed since COVID. You walk up to the outside service window and place your order. Payment is only accepted in cash.
All listed in US and $1US is $1.50 AU.
4 Tamales $10
3 tacos is $10-$12
3 Pupusas $8.50-$10
Even with taking shipping cost to Australia, it's steep. That would probably be $15 AU and with labor and shipping maybe $20-$25 AU.
We have little old ladies selling tamales on street corner stands, tamale guys who carry coolers into bars and other places that don’t serve food—they sell them for something like 4-6 tamales & some salsa in a bag for $5.
AUD. But people here are paid in Australian. Then again food is expensive here and this is a pretty upscale place. These would be takeaway though. I'm torn
I know it’s not your answer, but years ago when I was a broke college kid I was with a couple of friends and a homeless guy came up to us selling brisket sandwiches. Both of my friends were disgusted, but he was surely more broke than I was and his sandwich smelled really good to me. I followed him back to the side of the gas station where his stuff was and bought all of his brisket and bread for $10. That was probably my best $10 investment ever. The food was great and he was able to stop soliciting for that day at least. This was the early 90s so $10 went further than now.
There’s a tamale lady that sells them out of her trunk close to where I am. 3 for $10 with home made salsa. Absolutely delish.
I will die on the hill of: the best tamales you will ever have, will come from the trunk of a car. And yeah somewhere around $2 to $4 per tamale usd seems to be standard throughout the US. My coworkers used to always say I'd regret stuff like that. Boiled peanuts out of a pot in the yard, brisket sandwich from a rundown shack, tamales out of the trunk of a car... if your grill or smoker is an old 55g drum... Yeah I'm going to want to try whatever you're making. Not saying restaurant chefs don't put love in their work... It's just something different between the two types, and I'm willing to risk it. Edit: you will pay more if in a restaurant and getting them as a meal. The above price is for just tamales.
We always have someone in the foodsco parking lot selling them
I know a girl Dalia that makes them then delivers them to you. Or she was doing it during covid, same deal with salsa. I forget the cost but it was more like 4/10, but they were like meant to cook, not ready to eat. I don't order ready to eat tamales ever.
Yeah we have two people with a similar setup in the Home Depot parking lot but they are getting competitive with each other now and they’re $3 a pop
About the same in AZ. Usually 3-4 for $10.
Mexican restaurants and grocery stores will sell them here. $38 for four is insane. They must know they're the only game in town. There are dozens of recipes online - you might as well just make them yourself.
Yeah, I can order masa online. corn husks are expensive but the Asian grocery sells banana leaves to wrap. I hear they use those in Baja (and in Guatemala according to another comment).
Actually- yes. In some parts of Mexico, banana leaves are used. Amazing tamales.
I'd imagine the banana leaves and a sweetness to them?
They do add a distinct flavor, but I don't recall it being 'banana-y'. The ones I had were nacatamales, a specialty of Nicaragua, and a meal in themselves, full of meat, veg, and savory elements like olives and raisins. Unfortunately, the restaurant where I enjoyed them closed after a year or two. One day, if I have enough ambition, I will try to recreate them. [https://www.internationalcuisine.com/nicaraguan-nacatamales/](https://www.internationalcuisine.com/nicaraguan-nacatamales/)
Corn Husks are the most well known ones yet, various cultures use Banana Leaves. My parents are Salvadoran and my mom's Tamales use banana leaves instead of corn Husks. This causes the exterior of the tamales to be a lot more moist
Banana leaves are also used in Venezuela.
I believe it's in AUS$, which has a different value and they have a different cost of living. Hard to answer this without something else to compare
According to the Google, $34 AUS = $22.73 USD. Still damn expensive.
My cleaning lady makes them for me. I think she expects like $2-$3 bucks apiece, but I just give her a hundred for the 25 she brings. Edit… I asked my wife and she said she sells them for $2.
Your wife sells the 25 tamales you pay $100 for at $2 each?
I think they meant the cleaning lady sells them for $2 a piece.
Whoosh
Whoosh
They lose money on every sale, but they make up for it in volume!
We got some from a lady in a parking lot yesterday, like 4 for $10. Or if I get them from a coworker or neighbor they’re cheaper but I’m happy to overpay. My friend’s family makes Guatemalan tamales every Christmas and she only asks for like $1/each.
Are Guatemalan tamales different?
The typical ones I usually get from a tamale lady or guy in a parking lot are smaller, wrapped in corn husks, etc, usually vegetarian (peppersand cheese), chicken, or pork chile verde. The Guatemalan tamales I usually get are larger, more moist, wrapped in banana leaves (the masa has a lil bit of a diff texture too), and in addition to chicken or pork filling they can include some unexpected (to me) ingredients like green olives and sometimes raisins.
Well shoot... Now I gotta find me some Guatemalan tamales. Never knew there was a difference.
You don't find tamales, tamales find you. And then you pay the lady, or dude, not very much to be happy forever. You exchange numbers. And you call when you need tamales. It's one of the rare, truly beautiful phenomenons in this world.
When the Tamale Lady walks into the bar, everyone reacts like they are seeing Archangel Gabriel. There’s cheering, sobbing, a lot of genuflecting.
Tamale Lady 2024 and Onwards
One time I got some for $2 each from a dude on a horse with a cooler full of them who had illegally crossed the border into Big Bend National Park specifically to sell tamales to hikers. It was delicious
That's awesome!
It is a scientific fact that felonies taste better.
Don't know the conversion for US$ vs AUS$ but my go-to place is $3 for one, $9 for six, and 16$ for a dozen. I like to add cheese and green chili to smother it.
In Chicago there was Tamale Man. He’d go from bar to bar around 1am selling the best tamales I’ve ever had. It was like $6 for 5 of them back in 2010 or so but I assume prices have gone up since then.
It's me. I'm the guy. And I don't charge as long as you bring the tequila.
Boy when I was living in a much smaller town, we'd get a free plate of tamales and refried beans every Christmas from the neighbors
IF I’m not getting them from a coworkers abuela… there are several amazing places in the city (benefits of living in Texas) but my favorite place it’s about $15/dozen Edited it add: my amount was in US dollars, converted to AUS is $22.50/dozen
The tamales aren't advertised but my favorite bar keeps them in stock for drunks that need a quick bite. $3 per tamale and they are heaven on earth. I'm incredibly uncomfortable with your post because tamales are not made with tortillas, so I don't know what's going on there. Tamales are made with masa and are steamed so maybe it's a mistake that you called them tortillas. The best tamales are the ones sold out of the back of a car or the back of a bar. If you can find a Mexican grocery, and if it has a little lunch counter hidden in the back, you are in *fucking luck* and it's the best food you've ever had.
Maybe I should clarify. They make their own masa fresh from grinding the corn and press their tortillas from the fresh masa while still moist. On rare occasions, they run a special and use their masa to make tamales. I can sometimes buy their tortillas in packs of 8 from a store near me, but they are often out. If I get down to Melbourne, I can buy kg packs of tortillas from the restaurant. I usually split the packs up to vacuum pack and freeze most.
In that case I can see why they are a little pricey.
I could go to a nearby restaurant and get 2 for 16 bucks and it would come with rice and beans. With a drink and tip it'd come to maybe 25. At Christmas time I can probably get a dozen for 30-40 bucks from people that advertise on reddit. The restaurant ones tend to be quite large, it is a full meal. The homemade ones tend to be a little smaller. Given the exchange rate that price seems insane.
I'm in Vermont. No tamales here. 😕 I'd pay quite a bit for some authentic Mexican food. I sure miss living in California.
$2 or $3 from people selling them from the trunk of their car in supermarket parking lots here in Southern California. They smell amazing and hell on earth when you're avoiding carbs
$8.95 (AU $13.39) for 3 in sauce of choice, served with beans, rice, guac, queso, sour cream, lettuce, tomato, onion and two tortillas. That said, making tamales at home is pretty easy or if feeling lazy most women who sell tamales on the side of the road/parking lots is a $10 (AU $14.96) dozen. Our larger grocer and smaller ones usually sell cold tamales for $7.45-10.49 (AU $11.14-$15.69) per dozen depending on size and various fillings. Grocery deli warm tamales usually go for $9.99 (AU $14.94) for a dozen.
Those prices are better than SoCal restaurant prices. Three tamales with all that, way over there? And only like 6-7k Mexicans in the whole of Aus? Unless it’s the worst Mexican food in the entire world, that’s a deal.
Nope, I was doing the AUS price as comparison, I am in Texas.
Oh ffs! Now it’s making a little more sense.
Live south of Tulsa, Oklahoma - Local lady sells them 6 for $20 - Beef, pork and chicken.
I got some good ones from a fundraiser for $2 a piece. I also got some for free from my friends dad who’s a chef. The max I’ve spent is like $4 a piece.
Bakersfield, California - maybe $2 each. There's a Mexican supermarket chain called Vallarta, and they have a few different styles. One of those stores in a more Hispanic neighborhood sees an old Mexican woman in the parking lot selling even better ones. Sometimes, you'll get a family that sells them door to door around Thanksgiving and Christmas for $20-30/dozen. One year we made our own with store-bought masa from Vallarta, but everything else was done by us: meat, spices, additional flavor mixed into the masa. If you like them, they're not terribly difficult to make, and you can make so many for cheap that you can give them away to friends or sell them.
They are often sold for about 2-3$ around Southern California. But they do vary so much on the type of meat, amount of meat, size of tamal and wether it’s made using banana vs corn leaf. Also of course some tamales are many times better than others. It’s rare to find a terrible one but it’s hard to find a great one.
Usually $2 - $5 each. A restaurant is going to be more like $5. A person just selling them is more like $2-$3. Food trucks tend to be $3-$4.
You're paying 5.76 USD per tamale. I live far away from Mexico so I pay more than Americans who live closer. $4 per tamale, I get them at a Honduras restaurant.
I stockpile them around Christmas when our extended family makes massive batches, everyone usually takes a couple dozen or so and throws them in the freezer. Ironically, we just finished ours off this week. You can buy them here in bakeries, Mexican supermarkets, or if you’re brave, from the lady selling them in the Wal-Mart parking lot lol. A lot of vendors sell them on the street in the morning for workers, or sell by word of mouth. Usually you buy them by the half dozen or dozen. I see a big Mexican supermarket near me is selling them for $25 for a dozen, and that seems high to me. Definitely cheaper at a panaderia or from a lady selling them. The answer though is that we stockpile them from Christmas See if you can get some of that masa and make some champurrado!
I have a couple of good ones and they charge now 15 for a dozen. Used to be 12 but inflation.
Depends on the type. There's 4 by me, three are traditional and one is restaurant style. The restaurant style is weird and kinda sucks lol. Or at least I haven't hade/seen/heard of a good one. Of the other three types, they are fairly cheap. I can get a dozen for 12 bucks now, used to be a lot cheaper. But the really good ones are 13/14 a half dozen, but are twice as fat and way more flavorful. The spicy Verde chicken ones are absolutely amazing!! But super spicy as well. Id put them 1.5x-2.0x franks hot sauce (completely arbitrary scale I just made up lol)
We have a food truck that sells them. I can get a dozen for $15. One of the only good things about texas tbh.
$34 AUS is about $22 USD. I mean guess that's a bit high but if they're making scratch with special in-hosue ingredients, I could see that being a reasonable price. For grocery store tamales they're usually like $3-4 each. It may range from lunch service at a counter at a Mexican grocery store to some lady in the parking lot selling frozen home-made tamales from her van.
If they are authentic like homemade masa and homemade fillings it’s incredibly labor intensive and takes multiple days to make them. It depends whether or not if they’re the only show in a 50mile radius. They can be expensive especially around holidays. They can be expensive depending on the filling. They can be very expensive if it’s a restaurant compared to someone selling it out of their car or home.
That's fair enough. I would have to drive 2 and a half hours each way and pay a toll. Almost worth it. I tried huitlacoche filling when I visited DC a year ago. They were small but good
I live in Texas so we probably have more access to tamales than most other states. But as an example I just checked my grocery store app and they had 12 packs on sale for about $10. Obviously that's not restaurant prices though.
Wherever I happen to live, I always seek out the lady or couple that sells them out of a van at the laundromat or grocery store, or a cooler walking down the street. For years I've never paid more than like $2-3 per tamal and they're the best you'll ever have. I've never had good tamales at a restaurant.
NYC - 3 for $10 on any street corner in Sunset Park.
$2/each or 20 for a dozen where I'm at. I usually buy a whole dozen.
There are a plethora of home cooks that sell tamales around me. Average price a dozen for $12-$15. Quality varies.
I think like...five bucks a pop from my local tamale lady
$30 per dozen. I think most people have a street connect
Here in town we have a Mexican family that owns 4 restaurants, 1 in my town, 3 in neighboring towns. They charge $8.50 for 3 tamales and you can add a 4th tamale for another $2.95. But you can dance and sing karaoke with the owner for free.
$15-18 per dozen. Some of these prices yall are quoting seem crazy to me! I thought what I'm paying was bad!
In my old neighborhood, people would come door to door or roll around in a truck selling homemade tamales. Now I usually get them from a friend whose mom or wife or neighbor makes them. Usually around 3 or 4 for $10 or so now.
A lady sells them in a parking lot next to my supermarket. $5 each, $20 for 5. ETA: they are DELICIOUS 🤤
That's more expensive than many people are saying but I'm sure they are worth it
In Central Texas they are $15-20 for a dozen usually
Last time I got tamales it was like $12 for 2 dozen. Got them at the monthly flea market my city has.
I live in Washington state and a friend of mine at work has a grandmother that sells tamales for $25/dozen. They are delicious. She brings them in fresh from the kitchen on Fridays right before we close. They're still warm.
As a Texan; I can hear the tamale lady in HEB walking around chanting “Tamales!! Tamales!! Tamales!!! Come get your fresh tamales!!!” I have a reusable HEB insulated bag with that printed on it.
I'd pay that for 4 tamales but I guess everyone else disagrees with me.
The wife of my husband's work-friend makes tamales, and sells them, six for $18. Pork, chicken, or vegetarian, they're all fantastic!
We get them at Christmas for $1.62 each at a place called La Casita. You have to get there super early cause they always sell out. Their website says they make 12,000/day.
$20 for a dozen from the lady who sells them in the parking lot of the local gas station. She has been there for at least a decade during peak tamales season.
My friends grandma (Mexican) makes them. $15 a dozen. Pretty standard for tamale guys to come through the bars late night selling tamales from their trunks.
Avoid Del Rio brand in the supermarkets. Trader Joe's frozen variety are pretty good.
$34 AUS is about $22.75 USD. That’s $5.69 per tamale. That seems high but not as high as I thought it might be in Australia.
I've seen them in the parking lot at the Mexican supermarket, I believe they sell for $5 a piece. I think you might be getting ripped off
Family gets a dozen for $20 from a lady who sells out of her home.
You're paying how much? Tamales are just Masa Harina, filling, corn, and whatever you put on top. Yeah, there is absolutely no world in which paying 34 USD is worth it.
That’s a scam. My grandma makes them for free.
Uhhhh, I normally buy them for $20 for a half dozen from the cart lady. Or if I'm available, I hit up the abuelita down the street, and if I help in the process to make them, she gives me a dozen for free and sells them cheaper than normal to me if I want more. There's normally like 6 of us, and we normally make like 300 or 400. She sells whatever we aren't paid for our work. Abuelita normally only makes them in the fall/winter.
The store has premade ones you throw in the oven not boxed like handmade and packed into like to go containers. Those are like $10 if I had to guess for like 5. Any Mexican food restaurant serves em and to be fair you just need to find the right restaurant because domes aren’t the best. I always tip the places I love the most though.
Costco sells acceptable ones for about $3 each, frozen. But I don't live in one of those places where you can just get tamales for $1 out of a cooler at the gas station or from someone's trunk outside Home Depot (been there, done both). So we make them at home. It's not hard and the ingredients are cheap, at least in the US; I'd guess they are <$.50/each when we make two dozen chicken or pork. All you need really is meat/spices for filling, masa, lard, and corn husks., plus seasonings/chlilis that we have in the pantry. Here's [an example recipe.](https://www.isabeleats.com/pork-tamales/#recipe) We use pork butt for most of our Mexican cooking as it's usually<$2/lb here and we got a *lot* of meat from cooking one.
Very easy to get them on Facebook marketplace. Especially on the weekends. Not saying that's necessarily a good idea (to buy food from a stranger), but you can. I just looked and they're $2 or $3 each. One person sells a dozen for $7. If I want a tamale there's a restaurant near work. There's a large Hispanic population in the neighborhood. They sell them for about $7 -$10 each, depending on what you get.
There’s a deli near me where you can get 4/$10
The tamaleria in Detroit where we buy our holiday tamales (my family rarely makes them now) sells them for $14.50 per dozen, cash only. Another local tamaleria sells them for $12 per dozen.
I live in San Antonio, so just about anywhere - but there are a few places that stand above the rest.
I haven’t had a good tamale since 1973. There was a Mexican grocery that had fresh tamales every Tuesday and they were the absolute best thing I have ever eaten.
Guy who sells at the farmer's market out of coolers but also has a restaurant. Does home delivery too (grocery sacks on the doorstep). Matter of fact, haven't bought from him in awhile. Should do that. Enchiladas are $19 for a 6 pack and tamales are $17 for a 6 pack, all individually wrapped and frozen.
I’m currently visiting home, and the neighborhood Tamale Lady sells them 4 for $10. Absolutely gorge on Mexican food whenever I’m back in the US.
Man everyone here is getting fleeced, 15/dozen for me
Right?! My family's preferred tamaleria sells them for $14.50 per dozen. It's a tiny, family-owned operation with a tiny building, basically just a kitchen and small waiting room, but the latter has been closed since COVID. You walk up to the outside service window and place your order. Payment is only accepted in cash.
Wait… are you saying that they sell tamales that are wrapped in tortillas?
Texas here. Our neighborhood restaurant goes door to door once a month and it's $20/dozen
All listed in US and $1US is $1.50 AU. 4 Tamales $10 3 tacos is $10-$12 3 Pupusas $8.50-$10 Even with taking shipping cost to Australia, it's steep. That would probably be $15 AU and with labor and shipping maybe $20-$25 AU.
They are 3.50 from street vendors in New York City. Delicious and filling.
I just checked Facebook marketplace you can always find some there! $30 a dozen in my area.
We have little old ladies selling tamales on street corner stands, tamale guys who carry coolers into bars and other places that don’t serve food—they sell them for something like 4-6 tamales & some salsa in a bag for $5.
is that usd or aud? 8.5 aud is 5.67 usd. local food truck is a dozen for $16usd $24 aud
AUD. But people here are paid in Australian. Then again food is expensive here and this is a pretty upscale place. These would be takeaway though. I'm torn
All these west coasters talking about buying tamales out of the back of a truck as I'm jealous 🥺
I have a Latin grocery store chain in my area that sells them $2.50 each last I checked
Tamales are something I order at a restaurant every once in a while. They’re not something I routinely buy
For cheeeeeap!! Like 2 dollars or something
I have a tamale lady who brings them to my door, hot. I can order a dozen for about $25 US.
Arizona home made 20 dollars for a dozen. Some ladies charge cheaper
Tamale guy who walks around my neighborhood sells 5 for $10 and they are bomb
I know it’s not your answer, but years ago when I was a broke college kid I was with a couple of friends and a homeless guy came up to us selling brisket sandwiches. Both of my friends were disgusted, but he was surely more broke than I was and his sandwich smelled really good to me. I followed him back to the side of the gas station where his stuff was and bought all of his brisket and bread for $10. That was probably my best $10 investment ever. The food was great and he was able to stop soliciting for that day at least. This was the early 90s so $10 went further than now.
$20/dzn usually.
The best place to buy tamales is out of the back of a car in the hardware store parking lot, of course.
I pay $2 USD per tamale
Where I live, there’s an authentic Mexican restaurant in a shady town that is very Hispanic. Extremely delicious tamales for $3 each
It depends how many I want to make. I just buy the ingredients and make them. It’s easier than making pizza from scratch.
Food truck. They only have them sometimes, but they are $5-7 dollars each.
The answer is always H-E-B (if you can’t get homemade)
Never had one.
Just looked at one place, a dozen for 26 dollars. One thing is your dollar is significantly different from ours.
Unfortunately people here are paid in Australian dollars, but point taken. We know many things are expensive here.