6 Hispanic Recipes from Around the World to Make at Home

Cheese Arepas (Colombia)

There are several kinds of arepas and they come from two different countries: Colombia and Venezuela.

What are arepas?

Arepas can be a snack or a meal. They’re made from pre-cooked corn flour, called masarepa. I love the ones that are filled with CHEESE!

They’re made by mixing the masarepa with water to form a dough. The dough is then rolled into a ball and then flattened (like a pancake). The flattened dough is then fried with a tiny bit of butter or oil.

You can find out more about them on my cheese arepas page.

I learned how to cook Colombian cheese arepas from Arepas del Gringo.

You HAVE to view the video! It’ll make your mouth WATER!

Sopa de Albóndigas (Various)

My mom, who is from Costa Rica, used to make sopa de albóndigas (meatball soup) all the time when my siblings and I were younger. She would make sopa de albóndigas and sopa negra for us whenever the weather got cold.

Of course, being that I really didn’t cook too much when I was younger, I recently looked up a recipe online for this very delicious meal. I absolutely LOVE using my Instant Pot, so I found a recipe that required me to use it.

I am telling you … if you like meat and you are trying to find a way to use up all of your vegetables that have been sitting in the refrigerator for a while, you are going to be OH SO THANKFUL for this recipe!

The recipe I tried (and loved) was from Flavor Mosaic.

I’m not sure what makes her recipe “Mexican”, but it seems very similar to how my mom, again who is from Costa Rica, used to make it.

**On a side note, although they ask for ground beef, I used ground turkey. It may not be authentic, but I try to make it a tad bit healthier. 

Just a tad 😀

Tortillas (Mexico)

There are many Hispanic or Latin American countries that make tortillas, but I know that tortillas are SUPER essential to Mexican cuisine.

So, what are tortillas?

They are made of cornflour and water that are mixed together to make a dough. The dough is then rolled, flattened, and toasted to form a thin, circular unleavened bread. Tortillas are commonly used as a sort of wrap for containing different foods (like chopped meat and vegetables).

To find a tortilla recipe, once again I went to my favorite Mexican recipe website, Isabel Eats.

I’m telling you all … her website does not disappoint!

Here’s her homemade corn tortilla recipe.

Oh, and let me tell you… homemade tortillas taste SO MUCH better than your storebought ones! 

However, I gotta warn ya, they took me a while to make the first time around. However, I was a whole lot faster the next time I made them.

They’re fun to make, too! It feels like you’re playing with playdough! 

Because of this, I would say this is a kid-friendly international recipe (in case you want to make tortillas with your kids, nieces or nephews, or grandkids).

Sopa de Maní (Bolivia)

The first time I had this SCRUMPTIOUS Bolivian peanut soup was at a church event with the Spanish ministry where we made food from our home countries. 

(**On a side note – Maní is peanut in Bolivian Spanish. In some other Spanish-speaking countries peanuts are called cacahuate. You can find out more about the names of common food said differently in different countries here).

My Bolivian friend’s mom made THE BEST soup I’ve ever had! I seriously love this stuff!

I contacted my friend recently to find out how to make this delicious soup. 

She some searching around for me (she’s so friendly) and said that this recipe from Bolivian Cookbook is closest to what she’s used to eating in Bolivia.

I’m telling you this soup is DELICIOUS!

Now, I do have a little confession to make.

I tried to copy the recipe the best way I could.

It calls for blanched peanuts.

I was not able to get my hands on those! So, do you want to know what I used instead?

Natural creamy peanut butter.

Yes.

It tasted good!

And, my friend said it was an OK substitute (for now)! 

Maybe it wasn’t an authentic recipe from around the world, but it sure did taste AMAZING!

Sopa de Fideo (Mexico)

Last, but definitely not least, we have the sopa de fideo from Mexico.

In case you didn’t know, fideo in Spanish means “noodle”.

So, sopa de fideo is a Mexican noodle soup. 

HOWEVER, keep in mind that this soup is NOT chicken noodle soup and it is nothing like it!

It’s a tomato-based soup and may or may not contain chicken.

The first time I had sopa de fideo was when my Mexican roommate made it for me in college.

To make it, she first toasted the thin, short noodles in a pan with oil. While she was doing this, she was boiling some Roma tomatoes in water.

After the noodles were toasted and the tomatoes were cooked, she turned off the heat and poured the tomatoes and hot water into a blender with a quartered white onion and tomato bouillon powder.

Then, she would pour the tomato water mixture into the pasta and cook the pasta in the mixture.

Now, when I was looking for a sopa de fideo recipe, I was looking for one that did not require a lot of blending in a blender.

Why?

Well, simply because I do not have one and I do not have the space in my small, little kitchen for one. Instead, I use a food chopper.

The recipe I used was from Mexican Food Journal.

It was not the same as the recipe my roommate had made for me, but it was still pretty good!

*On a side note, my sister, who married into a Mexican family, says they use tomato sauce instead of tomatoes because it’s faster.

**If time is an issue for you, I know there are plenty of recipes online that ask for tomato sauce instead of fresh tomatoes! 

I have not tried any as of yet, however.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I hope I have inspired you to try one of these Hispanic recipes for yourself and for your families. 

I can’t tell you which ones were my favorites because they all taste good!

However, I CAN tell you which ones were the most fun to make (because they required me to work with my hands and I felt like I was playing with playdough).

Arepas & Tortillas 🙂

Try them with your kids! (I recommend adult supervision)