A Mexican chef shares the top 3 dishes you need to try if you want authentic Mexican food

• Hispanic Heritage Month spans from September 15 to October 15.
• Chef Pati Jinich of "Pati's Mexican Table" shared her top three authentic Mexican dishes to try.

As it does every year, Hispanic Heritage Month spans the month of September 15 to October 15, and celebrates Hispanic Americans' contributions, achievements, and influence.

Pati Jinich — a Mexican chef, cookbook author, and host of the three-time James Beard award-winning PBS series "Pati's Mexican Table" and the PBS docuseries "La Frontera" — spoke to Insider as part of her partnership with Gran Centenario Tequila about her favorite recipes, specifically the dishes she believes reflect true Mexican cuisine.

Here are the top three dishes you must try if you want authentic Mexican food, according to Jinich.

Salsa macha is an adaptable salsa that goes with both sweet and savory dishes

Jinich quickly fell in love with creating salsa macha, especially because she finds it to be so adaptable, "as is much of our Mexican nature and culture and cuisine," she said.

Salsa macha, which originates from the state of Veracruz, is made by frying dried chipotle chiles in olive oil and garlic, seasoning it with salt, and in Jinich's recipe, she adds "a joyous amount of vinegar" and piloncillo, a brown sugar commonly used in Mexican cuisine, to balance it out.

"You can make a big batch, put it in your fridge, and then it just makes everything you use it with spectacular," Jinich said. "If it's an avocado toast, if it's an avocado tostada, a cheese omelet, even a poundcake with ice cream. Salsa macha can go savory, [or it] can go sweet."

Guacamole is a staple on any Mexican dinner table

Guacamole, which needs only a few key ingredients, is a dip made with mashed avocados, and in Mexico, it accompanies everything from tacos and salsa to huevos rancheros and carne asada.

Jinich always recommends guacamole as people delve into Mexican cuisine, and she points out that they can have fun with it.

"Guacamole is something that people can make so easily and there's so many ways to go with it, from a traditional guacamole to different kinds of guacamole with different chiles and citrus and herbs," she said.

One of her unique takes includes ginger and pistachio. It involves mixing ginger with honey, lime juice, dried piquín, and salt before adding the mix to mashed avocado. Combined with pistachios and garnished with chives, it brings unique flavor and texture to the original version of the essential Mexican dish.

Tacos are a gateway to the best food Mexico has to offer

Although the origins of the taco are unknown, it is thought to come from Mexico long before the Spanish arrived — or at least that is what Mexicans will tell you.

"Any kind of tacos, people should try," she said. "They can go from super easy to more complicated, like birria, where you have to make the birria ahead of time, or like this tequila-seared steak, which you make in five minutes."

Her tequila-seared steak is meant to "tuck into a taco" once it's made, before it's garnished with avocado slices or guacamole. You should "see smoke and sizzle coming out of the kitchen," she said.

The beauty of Mexican cuisine, Jinich added, is that it's boisterous.

"Our food is loud, it's noisy and that's the way it should be because we're seasoning things, we're chopping things, we're making things on the go and the best food is made on the go, and at the moment," she said.