Southern Nevadans know that if you’re looking for the best tamales in Las Vegas, you probably don’t have to travel too far. We have so many great places in town for any kind of cuisine.
You can’t drive a few blocks without finding a place for great Mexican food. But because there are so many locations to choose from, narrowing the best one down to just one restaurant would be nearly impossible.
In fact, we had a hard time narrowing it down to seven. Because when it comes to food of any origin, Las Vegas is unmatched.
The Secret To The Best Tamales In Las Vegas, Or Anywhere
There are many reasons to celebrate tamales this month. March 23 is National Tamale Day. And March 23 through March 24 is the Tacos and Tamales Festival at Desert Breeze Park in Las Vegas. But the great thing about tamales is that you could eat them everyday and still not have enough.
And that’s because there are so many different varieties of tamales. But they all (at least all traditional ones) are made with that soft corn dough, called masa. That dough is then flattened down inside a corn husk.
Before the husk is tied closed, the masa is stuffed with a filling. What the masa is stuffed with depends on where you get the tamales and who is making them.
Some are stuffed with beef or green chiles. Others with cubed chicken and corn, or black beans and cheese.
I’ve even had a tamale with lobster meat inside. My favorite, hands down, is any tamale with mole sauce. Yum!

Process of making homemade red ancho chili tamales assembled on corn husks and tied. The best tamales in Las Vegas that I have found are the ones with really moist masa (photo by Malisa Nicolau/Getty Images).
No matter what filling is added to the inside of a tamale, the secret to getting one that is moist and delicious is twofold, according to tastingtable.com. They say that adding the cooking liquid back into the tamale, as well as soaking the corn husks prior to assembly, is what makes the difference between a perfect tamale and one that’s too dry.
A Quick Note About Tamales
Although tamales are widely considered as Mexican food, they are actually believed to have originated in Mesoamerica. Which is the land that is between North and South America. And different cultures in both South and Central America have adopted their own way of doing them, according to spruceeats.com.
Related: 5 Of The Best Places To Get Really Good Pizza In Las Vegas
If you’re like me, you might just let yourself believe that there is some magical tamale plant somewhere that grows tamales exactly the way we see them when they’re finished. Obviously that’s not the case.
Making tamales actually takes work. If you’re curious about just how a tamale is made, check out this video that sums it up pretty well.
Between restaurants, food trucks and corner carts, we probably have more places to get tamales than we have casinos to gamble at. And that can make it even harder to find the best tamales in Las Vegas.
So we did the work of eating a lot of tamales for you (you’re welcome…and thank you) to find what might just be the best tamales in town. Again, there are so many locations to choose from that narrowing it down to just seven was near impossible.
What ended up making the list were tamales that we thought were super delicious but also kind of unique in its own way. Enjoy!