Mexican Herbal Remedies (9 Herbs and How Families Prepare Them)

Mexican herbal remedies are mostly teas, brewed in a home kitchen from plants bought by the bunch at a market stall or picked from a pot by the door. Some came from Indigenous Mexico, like epazote and toronjil. Others, like ruda and canela, arrived with the Spanish in the 1500s and were folded into the same tradition. Below are nine herbs that keep showing up in Mexican home remedies and curanderismo (what people often search as Mexican herbs for healing), with how families traditionally prepare each one.

What curanderismo is

A curandero or curandera is a traditional healer. The practice draws on Indigenous Mexican medicine and on Spanish medicine, which itself carried North African influences. Plant remedies sit next to prayer and the limpia, a cleansing in which the healer sweeps the body with herbs, flowers or an egg.

Eliseo "Cheo" Torres started teaching curanderismo at the University of New Mexico in 2000. New Mexico Magazine reports the two-week summer course regularly enrolls about 200 students. In Mexico, UNAM and the national Indigenous institute (INPI) keep the Biblioteca Digital de la Medicina Tradicional Mexicana, whose plant atlas holds 1,045 monographs on medicinal plants.

Mexican herbs for tea

When anthropologist Robert Trotter surveyed folk remedies on the US and Mexico border in 1981, 70 of the 76 stomach ache remedies he recorded were teas.

Manzanilla (chamomile)

Manzanilla is Matricaria chamomilla, the same chamomile sold in tea bags everywhere. Trotter found families used it mainly for infant colic, and also for an upset stomach and occasionally for susto, the fright illness. The flowers are steeped in hot water and sweetened.

Yerba buena

Yerba buena is spearmint, Mentha spicata. In Trotter's records it had no single main use. Families brewed it for colic, an upset stomach and nervousness in roughly equal measure.

Toronjil

Mexican toronjil is Agastache mexicana, a native mint relative grown along the volcanic belt of Central Mexico. A 2021 review in Molecules (Palma-Tenango and colleagues) records that rural and urban households drink it as an infusion or a decoction. Traditional medicine classes it as a "hot" plant and uses it for fright, stomach pain and nervios, and as a cup before sleep.

Gordolobo

In Mexico the name gordolobo goes to woolly Gnaphalium species (sometimes listed as Pseudognaphalium). Trotter recorded families brewing gordolobo with lemon and honey as a tea for whooping cough.

Canela tea

Mexican canela is Ceylon cinnamon, Cinnamomum verum, the soft, flaky bark that Spanish traders brought to New Spain from Asia. Té de canela is made by simmering whole sticks in water. The same sticks flavor café de olla, atole and horchata. Vanguardia reported in April 2026 that some Mexicans still drink a cup on an empty stomach in the morning for digestion, as a family custom.

Mexican herbal remedies from the kitchen and the limpia

Epazote

The name comes from the Nahuatl epazōtl. Epazote (Dysphania ambrosioides) is cooked into a pot of black beans for flavor and, by long tradition, to make the beans easier on the stomach. Trotter's border families listed it as a stomach ache tea.

Ruda

Rue came from Europe in the 16th century. A 2021 bulletin from INAH Morelos traces it through Gregorio López's colonial herbal, which said ruda had power against malignant spirits. In Morelos a midwife sweeps a ruda branch over the body to clear mal aire, and ruda goes into sahumerios (smoke cleansings) with laurel and cinnamon. Trotter recorded a household method for earache, with the herb ground and warmed in oil.

Árnica mexicana

Mexican arnica is Heterotheca inuloides, a yellow daisy that is a different plant from European Arnica montana. A 2016 review in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology lists its traditional uses for muscular pain, rheumatism and skin inflammation. Trotter found it was prepared only as poultices, on the skin.

Those are the Mexican natural remedies most families could name. The last one grows much higher up.

Chuchupate, the root from the Sierra Madre

Chuchupate is Ligusticum porteri, the plant English speakers call osha or bear root. It is a mountain plant of Northern Mexico. UNAM's eFloraMex lists it as native to Chihuahua, Durango and Sonora, in the Sierra Madre Occidental. It belongs to the carrot and parsley family, a cousin of lovage, and grows at 1,500 to 3,500 m. The plant also grows in high mountains further north.

The Rarámuri (Tarahumara) of Chihuahua call the root wasía. Rarámuri families brewed it as a tea for stomach pain and fever. In 2020 students at the Universidad Tecnológica Tarahumara in Guachochi, the municipality with Chihuahua's largest Rarámuri population, made a hand gel from chuchupate and yerba buena, and described chuchupate as the plant the sierra traditionally uses for stomach pain. North of the border, Hispanic ranchers in New Mexico kept the name chuchupate, and chuchupate tea was a household remedy there for colds and sore throats.

Then there is the bear. The Diné credit the bear with leading them to this medicine, and the Lakota name, mato tapejuta, means bear medicine. The story goes that bears dig up the root when they come out of hibernation and chew it. Ethnobotanist Shawn Sigstedt watched captive bears chew osha root into a mash and rub it into their fur.

For a fuller account of the plant itself, read our guide to osha root.

Why our chuchupate comes in a bottle

Unlike the kitchen herbs above, chuchupate has never been grown at scale. United Plant Savers lists osha as At-Risk, and it reports that the vast majority of commercial root has to be dug from the wild. The plants are often more than 10 years old when they are dug. The root also looks like poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), a highly toxic plant, so a bag of chopped dried root with no species name is a gamble.

A tincture solves the practical problems. Mara's Bear Root is Ligusticum porteri from the mountains of Northern Mexico, extracted and sealed in dark Miron glass. Amber glass is a step in the right direction. Dark Miron glass keeps light off the extract, so the last dropper tastes like the first, and the 50 ml bottle lasts 30 to 50 days at 1 to 2 droppers a day.

Most people make it a daily ritual, any time of year. Hold 1 to 2 droppers under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow, or stir them into a morning tea, a water bottle after a hike or run, juice or a smoothie. It tastes earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root. A dropper in a cup of manzanilla or canela tea puts the mountain root beside the kitchen herbs.

Bear Root considerations

Contains alcohol. Not recommended during pregnancy. If you're nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it.

Questions people ask

What is the most common Mexican home remedy?

Herbal tea. In Robert Trotter's 1981 border survey, 70 of the 76 stomach ache remedies he recorded were teas, and manzanilla was the family standby for infant colic.

What are the best Mexican herbs for tea?

The everyday ones are manzanilla, yerba buena, toronjil, gordolobo and canela. Each is steeped or simmered in hot water, and canela is usually simmered as whole sticks.

Is chuchupate the same as osha?

Yes. Chuchupate is the Mexican Spanish name for Ligusticum porteri, also called osha and bear root.

Is Mexican arnica the same as arnica?

No. Mexican árnica is Heterotheca inuloides, and the arnica sold in Europe is Arnica montana. Both are yellow daisies used on the skin by tradition.