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Pupusa

Name: Pupusa
Total time: 60 min
Yield: Serves 8
Cuisine: El Salvador
Ingredients: 400g Precooked Corn Flour; 450ml Water; 200g Melting Cheese; 150g (cooked) Black beans; 150g Pork belly; 2 Tomato; 1/4 Onion; 1 clove Garlic; 1 tsp Salt; 2 tbsp Vegetable Oil

Main Dish

⏱ 60 min

👥 Serves 8

Difficulty ⭐⭐

Corn dough stuffed with cheese, beans, or pork and griddled — El Salvador's national dish.

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📖 The Story Behind This Dish

Pupusas are El Salvador's national dish: corn dough (masa) is stuffed with cheese, bean paste, finely chopped pork (chicharrón), and more, flattened into rounds, and cooked on a griddle. Said to date back to the Indigenous Pipil, they have a national holiday — Pupusa Day on the second Sunday of November. They're eaten by hand with curtido (fermented cabbage) and tomato sauce.

🌆 Where it's eaten: In a San Salvador alley at dusk, women at a pupusería clap dough between their palms into rounds and line them up on a hot griddle.

🥕 Ingredients (serves 8)

Precooked Corn Flour 400g
Water 450ml
Melting Cheese 200g
Black beans 150g (cooked)
Pork belly 150g
Tomato 2
Onion 1/4
Garlic 1 clove
Salt 1 tsp
Vegetable Oil 2 tbsp

👩‍🍳 Instructions

Add salt and water little by little to the cornmeal and knead until soft as an earlobe.
Finely chop the pork belly, fry, and mash into a paste with a little tomato. Mash the black beans too.
With oiled hands, divide the dough into 8 balls, make a hollow in each, fill with cheese, beans, and pork, and close.
Pat lightly between your palms into rounds about 12cm across.
Cook in a frying pan or on a griddle for 4–5 minutes per side.
Serve with a sauce of tomato, onion, and garlic simmered and blended, plus curtido.

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