South American Recipes

Serious Eats

Jul 11, 2025

Cool Off with This 3-Ingredient Tropical Cocktail

Learn how to make a classic caipirinha with just lime, sugar, and cachaça—Brazil’s popular cocktail. It’s refreshing, vibrant, and perfect for warm-weather sipping.

Serious Eats

Jun 11, 2025

Cuba’s Boldest Beef Dish Is Salty, Garlicky, and Completely Underrated

This traditional Cuban tasajo recipe transforms dry-cured beef into a bold, savory dish flavored with garlic and onion, boasting a satisfying chew. Try it fried for crispy edges or stewed for a tender and saucy dish.

Serious Eats

Jun 9, 2025

The Secret to the Best Beef Empanadas? It's Not Beef

A regional specialty of the northeastern Argentine state of Chaco, these buttery empanada are stuffed with tender shreds of beef jerky and heaps of caramelized onions.

Serious Eats

Apr 16, 2025

For Moist, Tender Carrot Cake, Make It the Brazilian Way

Bolo de cenoura is a Brazilian carrot cake that’s balanced, just sweet enough without being cloying, and equally wonderful as a snacking cake or as a dessert for a special occasion.

Serious Eats

Apr 8, 2025

Chilean Beef Empanadas

These big baked empanadas filled with a spiced beef and onion stew called pino are popular throughout Chile.

Serious Eats

Aug 2, 2024

Pastel de Choclo (Chilean Corn and Beef Casserole)

The layers of pastel de choclo, Chile's beloved summer corn casserole, always remain the same: a base of a savory beef and onion stew, a scattering of poached chicken pieces, slices of hard-boiled eggs, raisins, and a few black olives all topped with a thick layer of a basil-kissed corn puree.

Serious Eats

Jul 10, 2024

The Thrilling 'More Is More' Approach to Chilean Hot Dogs

One of Chile’s most popular street foods, completos feature hot dogs tucked into a fresh, sturdy bun then generously topped with sauerkraut, diced tomatoes, mashed avocado, mayonnaise, and more.

Serious Eats

Feb 20, 2024

Charquicán (Chilean Vegetable and Beef Stew)

A fragrant onion-based sofrito brings this timeless vegetable- and beef-laden Chilean stew to life.

Serious Eats

Feb 14, 2024

Costillar a la Chilena (Spicy Marinated Chilean Pork Ribs)

Spicy, garlicky Chilean pork ribs get a kick from vinegar, hot sauce, and dried spices.

NYT Cooking

Jan 23, 2024

Sopa Paraguaya (Cheesy Cornbread)

Crisp at the edges and creamy in the center, this dense, cheesy cornbread from I Love Paraguay, a Paraguayan restaurant in Queens, New York City, has a texture similar to bread pudding. Paraguayans serve it for many meals in the country, but especially alongside asado (grilled meats). Though the bread is extremely popular, its true origins are murky. Many people will tell a similar story: In the mid-1800s, when Carlos Antonio López was the president of Paraguay, he liked to eat corn soup. But his chef made a mistake and added too much cornmeal, and instead served the president a corn bread. The president reportedly loved it so much that he named it sopa Paraguaya. But others say that the bread has deeper roots from the Cario-Guaraní, a group of Indigenous people in Paraguay, who made a similar type of cornbread.

Serious Eats

Sep 28, 2023

Pantrucas (Chilean Noodle Soup)

Pantrucas (Chilean Noodle Soup) is a comforting soup served piping hot and consisting of beef broth, fresh eggless noodles, and a balanced medley of spices and vegetables.

Serious Eats

Sep 26, 2023

Pequenes (Chilean Onion Empanadas)

These Chilean onion empanadas have a savory onion filling wrapped in a flaky empanada crust

Serious Eats

Aug 22, 2023

Empanadas de Queso (Argentine Cheese Empanadas)

Empanadas are found up and down Argentina. But in the Northwest city of Salta, a red chile pepper-dyed dough stands out among the rest.

NYT Cooking

Apr 2, 2023

Vegan Sopa de Maní (Bolivian Peanut Soup)

This vegan version of a traditional Bolivian soup is made with a base of puréed peanuts but has none of the heaviness of peanut butter. Instead, it’s creamy yet delicate, hearty without heft. Patrick Oropeza, the chef of Bolivian Llama Party in Sunnyside, Queens, primes the stock with a powder of locoto chiles, gutsier than jalapeños, and quilquiña, an herb that delivers the sunny grassiness of cilantro, with a sly kick. (Both may be found at Latin markets and specialty grocers online.) Then he drops in potatoes, and tubes of penne that are toasted first in a dry pan to draw out their nuttiness and change their texture just enough that they hold firm in the soup. In Bolivia, a bowl of sopa de maní typically comes topped with thick wedges of fried potato, like steak fries. Mr. Oropeza uses matchsticks instead, which fry faster and stay crispy.

Serious Eats

Mar 15, 2023

Albóndigas de Ricota (Argentine Ricotta Balls)

Breaded, heavily seasoned cheese balls make the perfect cheesy vehicle for thick, garlicky red sauce.

Food52

Jun 24, 2020

low acyl gellan gum used in fruit fillings for bakery shop

Low acyl Gellan Gum can be used in fruit preparation recipes like heat-stable bake stable fruit filling or other preparation like yoghurt fruit preparation.

NYT Cooking

Oct 30, 2019

Chimichurri

Chimichurri is a herbaceous and vinegary sauce from Argentina that’s classically paired with grilled meats, especially beef, but its uses don't end there. You can combine it with a dollop of mayonnaise to marinate chicken cutlets. (That same mayo-and-chimichurri mixture makes an excellent potato salad dressing, or toss it with sliced scallions and grilled or boiled corn cut from the cob.) Combine chimichurri with equal parts olive oil to use as a marinade and dressing for grilled vegetables. Add a few crushed cloves of garlic to that same mixture, brush it on a split ciabatta or baguette, and grill or broil it for an oregano-packed take on garlic bread. It may be tempting to think of a chimichurri as a sort of Argentine parallel to Italian pesto, but it is not: While pesto is made in a mortar and pestle and emulsified into a creamy mixture with a base mostly comprised of olive oil, chimichurri is made with chopped dried herbs that are steeped in hot salty water (the brine is called salmuera) and vinegar, with less olive oil added. Its texture comes from the dried herbs rehydrating in salt water. Chimichurri can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks; it will lose its bright green color, but it will improve in flavor with time.

Food52

Aug 7, 2014

Homemade Alfajores

Alfajores are a cookie recipe made from two flat disks of melt-in-your-mouth rich and buttery shortbread, sandwiched together with a dollop of dulce de leche.

NYT Cooking

Jul 10, 2005

Cuban Pork Tenderloin With Chimichurri Sauce

NYT Cooking

Jan 1, 1989

South American Turkey Hash

NYT Cooking

Pan de Jamón (Venezuelan Ham Bread)

This recipe for the traditional Venezuelan Christmas bread comes from Martha Beltrán in Austin, Tex., who brought the recipe with her when she moved to the United States and now considers it essential to her family's Thanksgiving feast. Ms. Beltrán always starts the bread the day before she serves it, laminating it with butter three times before rolling it up with ham, bacon, olives and pimentos. The process can be long, but the dough can be left in the fridge for a flexible and forgiving amount of time, even overnight. When the finished loaves are sliced, each piece reveals a festive butter-slicked swirl.

NYT Cooking

Smashed Potatoes With Tapenade

NYT Cooking

Locro de Gallina (Chicken Soup With Squash, Green Plantains and Yuca)

Derived from a Quechua term for a hearty soup-stew hybrid, locro originated in the Andes mountain range but today encompasses a glut of South American soups that vary from country to country, and household to household. Originally made with varying combinations of squash, corn, beans and potatoes, locro has transformed regionally, with some even including ingredients like poached eggs and thinly shaved brisket. Inspired by versions found in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, this recipe starts with chicken broth seasoned with turmeric, paprika and annatto seeds, and uses squash, plantains and yuca, but feel free to use whatever vegetables you have in your fridge. Make sure to keep the pieces large so they don’t disintegrate into the soup as it simmers; cutting them with your spoon as you eat is part of the experience.

NYT Cooking

Standard Masa for Empanadas

Masarepa is cornmeal that has been precooked, dehydrated and ground into a fine powder. It’s used all over Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia for a variety of recipes, including arepas and empanadas.