Honduran food has many influences, ranging from the Caribbean and Africa to the ancient Maya and Spain. Hondurans enjoy a heavily meat-based diet, although beans are a popular source of protein, too. Along the coast, seafood is everywhere, from fresh shellfish to snapper, mahi mahi, and the much-prized conch.
Hondurans rely on ingredients that are available locally. Dishes come with corn tortillas or rice, plantains and yuca, also called cassava, providing other carbohydrates. You’ll find cabbage everywhere, as well as tomatoes, while some dishes are flavored with tropical fruits and coconut. The food isn’t typically spicy, although condiments and salsas can always pep up a meal, and cabbage is often combined with onion to create a tangy slaw.
Try these local dishes to experience more of this beautiful country.
Baleadas
Baleadas
Baleadas is one of the most iconic Honduran dishes, and you’ll see it on sale everywhere. There are many variations, but baleadas typically consist of a wheat flour tortilla served hot and filled with all kinds of ingredients.
The basics are fried beans, butter, and grated cheese. But this can be further loaded with mantequilla, which is Honduran sour cream, scrambled eggs, chorizo, steak, avocado, and even fried bananas.
You can eat baleadas for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even in between meals.
Honduran Breakfast
Honduran breakfast
Breakfast is a big deal in Honduras, where people often rise with the sun. It’s often the most important meal of the day and is eaten early as fuel for a long day.
Typically, breakfast will include fried eggs, fried beans, fried plantains, corn tortillas, avocado, cheese, mantequilla sour cream, perhaps some jam if toast replaces the tortillas, as well as orange juice and strong coffee.
Plato Tipico
Plato tipico
While the name doesn’t give much away, plato tipico is the national dish of Honduras. Essentially, it’s marinated and grilled beef and pork sausages accompanied by pork crackling, marinated cabbage, sour cream, cheese, fried plantain, fried beans, avocado slices, and a mountain of tortillas.
The whole dish can be spiced up a little with chimol, a tomato salsa that also includes chopped corn, green onions, and jalapenos. If you only try one kind of Honduran dish, make it this.
Sopa de Mariscos
Sopa de mariscos
Sopa de mariscos, or seafood soup, appears on menus all along the coast and around the Bay Islands. The seafood, which could be any combination of conch, clams, mussels, shredded crab, and shrimp, is cooked in coconut milk, which adds depth and sweetness.
Vegetables, corn, and yuca may be thrown in, too. The soup is cooked quickly rather than boiled for hours, which keeps it fresh, tasty, and packed with nutrients. Sometimes, sopa de mariscos is served with rice, which ensures every last drop can be mopped up.
Sopa de Caracol
This may translate literally as “snail soup” and a conch is indeed a sea snail, but if you’re put off by the idea of eating snails, think of it as “conch soup” and it sounds more appetizing. Hondurans love it; there’s even a song dedicated to the dish.
This hearty soup originated with the native Garifuna people, who were highly skilled at fishing and harvesting the conch that’s so popular here. The meat of the conch is cooked in coconut milk, with vegetables, corn, yuca, and plantain. It’s served with rice and corn tortillas to mop up the liquid.
Tamales
Tamales
Tamales are thought to have originated with Mesoamerican cultures who arrived in Honduras from Mexico, South America, and Central America.
They’re made from corn dough stuffed with pork or chicken. Sometimes, peas, olives, and rice are added. The whole ensemble is wrapped in plantain leaves and steamed. It’s served hot, and you eat the filling but not the leaves; they’re just for cooking.
Every family has its own tamales recipe. As the dish is fairly labor-intensive to prepare, tamales tend to be eaten on special occasions, with every member of the family helping on the assembly line.
Conch Ceviche
Conch ceviche
Another popular way of preparing conch is to marinate it in lemon juice, which “cooks” the meat. In Honduras, the marinade also includes salt and pepper, onions, bell peppers, chopped garlic, and fresh cilantro, the result being deliciously tangy.
Ceviche is served on a lettuce leaf and is accompanied by tortilla chips or crackers. Usually, it’s eaten as an appetizer.
Garifuna Tapado
Garifuna tapado
This rich fish and seafood stew originated in the Bay Islands and is a specialty of the Garifuna Indigenous people. It’s a delicious concoction made from garlic, onions, jalapeño, bell peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro, pureed into a sofrito base, and cooked with fish stock and coconut milk.
Plantain, yuca, and green banana are added and simmered until soft and any available seafood added. The stew is then served with fried fish on top.
Pescado Frito
Pescado frito
Pescado frito is fried fish, which is eaten with fried plantain chips and fried bananas. Sometimes, a side of rice and beans is added.
While this is a simple dish, you can’t beat fish fresh from the sea that very morning. Snapper, mahi mahi, and lionfish are all popular. Lionfish, incidentally, is the most eco-friendly fish you can eat in the Caribbean. It’s an invasive species with no predators, so catching it is encouraged. Fortunately, it’s also delicious, delicate, light, and flaky.
If the fish is on the menu as “yojoa”, it’s a freshwater species from Lago de Yojoa, marinated overnight with salt and spices and then fried and served with pickled cabbage, pickled onions, and slices of lime.
Enchiladas
Enchiladas
Enchiladas are another popular street food or snacking food in Honduras. A fried corn tortilla is topped with ground beef and then garnished with all manner of extras, from tomato sauce to cheese, hard-boiled egg, tomato, or shredded cabbage.
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Anafre de Frijoles
Anafre de frijoles
This tasty bean dish makes a great appetizer. Fried red or black beans are served with melted cheese, into which you dunk corn tortilla chips. The “anafre” is a clay pot with holes in the bottom. It’s placed over hot coals for the contents to cook.
Anafre de frijoles is a great vegetarian dish, although some cooks add meat in the form of chorizo sausage, so check when you order if you don’t want meat.
Caribbean Lobster
Caribbean lobster
The Caribbean spiny lobster, which is prolific in the waters off Honduras, is a contentious luxury, partly because it’s overfished and partly because of the dangerous conditions in which impoverished local free divers are sometimes made to work to catch the crustacean. Lobster fishing is, however, an important industry for Honduras.
You should only eat lobster in season, which is from July through February. Only eat it in a restaurant that adheres to the Bay Islands Responsible Seafood Guide. Check the size of the tail; anything smaller than 5.5 inches long has most likely been caught illegally.
If you do want to eat lobster, you’ll find it poached, boiled, steamed, or grilled and served with a butter sauce. You’ll eat the tail, as Caribbean spiny lobsters don’t have front claws like their cold-water cousins from further north.
Carne Asada
Carne asada
When you’re ready for a break from seafood, head to a grill restaurant for carne asada. This will be a feast of chicken, pork, and spicy sausages, slow-cooked on the barbecue, and served with rice, beans, tortillas, grilled plantain, and cheese.
Eating carne asada is a social occasion, and it’s often shared by families and groups of friends on weekends. Wash it down with a local beer; Imperial and Salva Vidas are both popular.
Pinchos
Pinchos
Pinchos is a satisfying dish comprising beef, pork, chicken, or fish, skewered and grilled with vegetables. An anafre, a heated clay pot, will be brought to the table filled with stewed beans, cheese, and cream. Consume the whole meal with toasted tortillas.
Pupusas
Pupusas
Pupusas are thick corn tortillas filled with cheese, beans, or meat, cooked on the griddle, and eaten by hand. Pupusas are often served with curtido de repollo, a vinegary, spicy side of cabbage and onions, and a dip of a tomato-based sauce.
Vegetarians, for whom pickings can be slim in traditional Honduran food, can opt for the cheese or bean version of pupusas for a hearty meal.
Pastelitos de Carne
Pastelitos de carne
Not unlike empañadas, pastelitos de carne are deep-fried corn flour patties stuffed with meat and potatoes and served with a sauce made of tomato, onion, and bell peppers. Alternatives include chicken filling, while potatoes may be substituted with rice.
Pastelitos are a typical street food prepared at roadside stalls and eaten on the hoof, still warm.
Pan de Coco
Pan de coco, or coconut bread, is a dairy-free, egg-free bread roll made with coconut milk with added desiccated coconut and sugar. Curiously, although it’s without doubt sweetish to taste, the bread is typically served with stews. Because it’s dense in texture, it’s perfect for soaking up all the sauce.
You could also fill pan de coco with cheese or ham to make a sandwich, or have it for breakfast with butter and jam.
Atol de Elote
Atol de elote
This sweet corn drink originated with the Maya and is consumed by many Hondurans in the mornings. It’s believed to be packed with goodness and is a great energy boost.
The ingredients are pureed corn kernels blended with water, pureed, and strained. Sugar and salt are added and the liquid is boiled and served warm and sprinkled with cinnamon or vanilla. You’ll see market stalls dishing out atol de elote, as well as street food vendors.
Yuca con Chicharrón
Yuca con Chicharrón
This yuca-based dish is often served as a side or an appetizer. Yuca root is boiled and combined with lemon juice and cabbage. It’s topped with pork chicharron, crispy and deep fried, and a spicy tomato sauce. Grated cheese and more cabbage may be added as toppings.
Torrejas
Torrejas
Torrejas is a sweet dish that was brought from Spain by the conquistadors and is a variation on the Spanish torrijas. It’s typically eaten in Semana Santa, or Holy Week, and at Christmas as a dessert.
A slice of stale bread is soaked in sweetened milk and then dunked into a beaten egg and fried. The sweetener is panela, unrefined sugar cane, with cloves and cinnamon added for flavor, and warm honey drizzled on top.
Tajadas de Plátano
Tajadas de plátano
This simple but tasty dish pops up all over Honduras; it’s served with meals or eaten as a snack. Tajadas, or slices of green plantain, are fried in either butter or oil until they’re crisp.
They can be served with beef, pork, or fried chicken, topped with tomato sauce and the ubiquitous slaw to create a colorful, texture-filled meal.
Honduran Coffee
Honduran coffee
Honduras is a rising star in the world of coffee, famous for its sweet, almost fruity beans. The country has six main coffee-growing regions, each claiming an individual flavor profile of its beans.
You’ll find all manner of coffee shops and independent roasters in Honduras, with skilled baristas who can prepare your favorite latte or flat white. Coffee is typically drunk for breakfast with milk and sugar, with some Hondurans adding allspice for further flavor.
Pollo Chuco
Pollo chuco
Pollo chuco comes from northern Honduras, although you’ll find it anywhere. It’s a dish of tajadas de platano, or fried plantain chips, topped with crispy fried chicken on the bone, pickled onions, and a selection of sauces. It’s the sauces that define this popular dish.
Coleslaw is used to give the dish crunch, while chismol, a tangy tomato salsa, gives it zing. Purists may also add a pink sauce, made of mayo, ketchup, vinegar, and sugar. Sometimes, pork is used instead of chicken, the dish called chuleta con tajadas.
Pollo chuco is a typical street food, although it can be extremely messy to eat thanks to the salsa and pink sauce.
Canoas de Platanos
Plantains have many uses in Honduran cuisine, and here, the fruit is the star of the dish. Ripe plantains are fried and slit down the middle lengthways to create a “canoe”. They’re then filled with beans and grated cheese and grilled until the cheese melts.
Canoas de platanos
The plantains take on a caramelized texture, a delicious contrast to the savory filling. Some recipes add minced beef, too, but canoas de platanos without this is a dish that vegetarians can enjoy in Honduras.
Macheteadas
Macheteadas are rich, sweet, and filling, and quite the way to start the day. A dense dough including coconut oil, milk, and eggs, among other things, is shaped into rough discs and fried in oil until golden brown. The macheteadas are then drizzled with honey or maple syrup and served with coffee at breakfast time.
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Roatan
Are you ready to sample some authentic cuisine from this fascinating country? Browse Celebrity’s cruises to Honduras and plan your dream tropical vacation.
