The Best Margarita Recipe
Is there anything better than that first sip of a perfect homemade margarita on the rocks? A salted rim, the heat of tequila, sweet orange liqueur and zingy fresh lime juice. Oh yeah, margaritas go down easy. Our margarita recipe is the perfect balance of the classic three margarita ingredients: Tequila, lime juice and orange liqueur. Serve these easy beauties with Homemade Corn Tortilla Chips and Perfect Guacamole and make every day Cinco De Mayo! For a lighter riff on a margarita, try our Ranch Water, or get wild and make a frozen strawberry margarita. For a kid-friendly quencher, check out how to make agua frescas!
Classic Margarita Ingredients
For the margarita itself:
- Tequila. Use blanco tequila (meaning one that is not aged) and use the best quality you can to make your margarita. You deserve it, and your head will thank you!
- Freshly-squeezed lime juice. One lime has roughly one ounce of juice, so for our recipe—which calls for 1.5 ounces of lime juice—you’ll need two limes to make one margarita.
- Orange liqueur. Cointreau, Grand Marnier and Combier are all nice choices here, but any good-quality triple sec will work.
Classic Margarita Garnishes & Upgrades:
- Salt. We love a salted rim, but if you don’t feel free to skip it!
- Lime wedges.
- Our secret ingredient: Angostura bitters. A lot of people add simple syrup or agave, but we like to add a dash of bitters to add a lot of complexity and brighten up the drink. Bitters work in cocktails sort of like salt works in most recipes; they light up all of the other ingredients.
How To Make The Best Margarita
Make a margarita garnish decision: Are you a salted rim person? Or a no-salt person? If you’re a salted rim person, pour some kosher salt on a plate. Rub the rim of the glass with a lime slice so that the salt has something to cling to, and then dip the rim of your cocktail glass (we like to use a classic rocks glass) in the salt.
Juice the limes. We love our trusty citrus juicer for this job.
Fill your glass with ice.
Combine the tequila, lime juice, and orange liqueur in an ice-filled cocktail shaker.
Shake that margarita! Cover the shaker and shake it vigorously for 20 seconds until it’s super frosty!
- Strain that beautiful homemade cocktail into your ice-filled rocks glass and enjoy.
Easy Margaritas For A Crowd + Variations
- Make it spicy! Our Spicy Margarita is arguably even better than our classic version. We especially love it in winter — yes, we drink margaritas in winter! National Margarita Day is Feb. 22, folks! — when we’re craving heat.
- Make your margarita springy! When the weather turns and the farmers markets are brimming with ruby red rhubarb, get a little fancy and mix up our Rhubarb Mint Margarita with Jalapeño Tequila. Yum! Or try our Mojito for another minty springy quencher.
- Make a pitcher of margaritas! It’s easy to scale up our classic margarita recipe for a crowd. Our margarita ratio is 4 parts tequila: 3 parts lime juice: 1 part orange liqueur. So to mix up a batch of margaritas for 6 people, fill a pitcher with ice and stir together:
* 12 ounces of tequila
* 9 ounces of fresh lime juice
* 3 ounces orange liqueur
- To serve: a single serving of this margarita recipe is about four ounces, so pour about four ounces of the stirred margarita into an ice-filled rocks glass (salt rim optional).
More Classic Cocktail Recipes To Try
Cheers!
For more recipe inspiration, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest or order our cookbook. We love when you share your meals. Tag us on Instagram using #themodernproper. Happy cooking!
