This is an AI-generated image.

Pinolillo

Name: Pinolillo
Total time: 20 min
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Nicaragua
Ingredients: 100g Corn grits; 2 tbsp Cocoa powder; 1/2 tsp Cinnamon powder; 2 Clove; 3 tbsp Sugar; 600ml Milk; To taste Ice

Dessert

⏱ 20 min

👥 Serves 4

Difficulty ⭐

Toasted corn and cacao powder dissolved in water or milk — Nicaragua's national drink.

📱 Open in Storage App

🚧 The Storage app is currently in development. Please check back soon.

📖 The Story Behind This Dish

Pinolillo is a traditional Nicaraguan drink: corn is toasted and ground with cacao and cinnamon, and the powder is dissolved in water or milk. Nicaraguans even call themselves 'pinoleros,' and it's considered a national symbol. Drinking it from a gourd cup called a jícara is the old-fashioned way.

🌆 Where it's eaten: At a village market in Nicaragua, a gritty brown drink poured into a gourd cup is handed over for a breather in the shade.

🥕 Ingredients (serves 4)

Corn grits 100g
Cocoa powder 2 tbsp
Cinnamon powder 1/2 tsp
Clove 2
Sugar 3 tbsp
Milk 600ml
Ice To taste

👩‍🍳 Instructions

Toast the corn grits in a frying pan until fragrant and brown.
Lightly toast the cloves too.
Grind the toasted corn grits, cloves, cocoa, and cinnamon finely in a mill.
Dissolve 3–4 tbsp of the powder and sugar in milk and mix well.
Add ice and drink (stirring as you go, since the powder settles).

← More Nicaragua recipes 🗺 Explore another country