Honduran food combines the cooking style of the native Lenca people with influences from the Caribbean, Spain, and Africa. It builds layers of heat, spice, and sweetness on top of rich, hearty staples that have been eaten in the area for thousands of years.

Join us on this one-of-a-kind Central American food tour as a local writer takes us on a whirlwind tour of 18 of Honduras’ most popular and must-try dishes.

Baleada

Baleadas are often eaten for breakfast. They are made of a wheat flour tortila that is filled with a variety of tasty ingredients and then folded before being served.

Baleadas can be filled with many different things. However, this healthy and filling breakfast food is usually made with beans, grated cheese, ham, and cream. If you eat a few baleadas, you’ll soon feel like a “catracho,” or a native Honduran.

Catrachas

Most of the time, catrachas are served as a side dish or an appetiser, but in some places, this hearty dish is the main course. It’s built around corn tortillas, like a lot of Honduran food. This popular Honduran dish is just fried corn tortillas with grated smoked cheese and cooked red beans on top, served open-faced.

So quickly, it’s done! A traditional Honduran appetiser that is loved all over the country is on your plate. You can always add pork rinds or slices of avocado to your catrachas to make them a little fancier.

Sopa De Caracol

Sopa de caracol, also called conch snail soup, is a savory soup that is most often found in coastal areas of Honduras. Sopa de caracol is a popular dish in Honduras. It may sound easy, but the recipe requires perfect timing, practice, and skill.

The conch snails are the main part of the soup, and the other things in the pot go well with them. Some of these are carrots, pieces of ripe plantain, tomatoes, bell peppers, and cassava. Adding some finely chopped fresh cilantro gives the dish a fresh taste and smell.

One way to make the snails taste even better is to sauté them in coconut oil with diced garlic and onion before putting them in the pot. The soup is then made by slowly cooking everything in stock and coconut milk until it is done.

Tapado Olanchano

The rich flavours of Tapado Olanchano make it a favourite among both locals and tourists. Food from the Olancho region is very popular in Honduras, and this rich stew is a common choice for lunch.

The dish has salted beef, smoked pork ribs, and pork sausage, as well as green and ripe plantains, cassava, and chicharrón, which is a type of fried pork belly or rinds.

Garlic, tomato, onion, and cilantro add flavour, and coconut milk is added to the broth to give the stew both body and a pleasant smell. This is how stew is made in Honduras: it’s rich, salty, and hearty, with hints of sweetness.

Mondongo Soup

Mondongo soup comes from Colombia, but it is popular all over Latin America and is still a favourite in Honduras. The mondongo is made of tripe and legs that have been washed well with vinegar or orange juice and cooked until they are so soft they melt in your mouth.

The soup also has coriander, garlic, onion, tomato, sweet chilli, banana, sugar, and a little bit of seasoning. The achiote gives the soup its red colour.

Bean Soup

Bean soup is a dish that everyone who visits Honduras must try. This simple but delicious soup is made with red beans. It is rich and easy to make, and it goes well with hearty Honduran sides.

A red bean broth is mixed with beef or pork ribs, spices, cassava, sweet chili, cilantro, green plantain, and onion. This makes a soup that is rich, spicy, and has a lot of kick. Corn tortillas and white rice are often served with it.

Alcitrones

Alcitrones is a simple but delicious dessert made of thinly sliced fruit that has been soaked in a sugar-and-water syrup. The fruits are added to the pot once the sweet syrup starts to thicken, which lets the fruit crystallise. Oranges are the most common fruit in Honduras, but papaya is also a popular choice.

Ayote with Honey

This classic dessert adds a special touch to summer, and everyone in Honduras eats it during Holy Week, the week before Easter. Ayote with honey is a delicious little treat that is made by mixing chopped, unrefined whole cane sugar with fruits and spices to make honey.

To make this dish, you cut up a small ayote and cook it with chopped panela, sweet cloves, cinnamon sticks, and coarse pepper in a pot. It’s important to stress that the best results will come from using sweet cloves.

Torrejas con Miel

Torrejas con miel is a simple, healthy dessert that is usually eaten at Christmas, Easter, and other national celebrations. For many Hondurans, it’s a favourite sweet treat to share with friends and family in the afternoon, along with a cup of coffee and some good music.

For the torrejas, which are a Spanish version of French toast, you need at least two loaves of bread. You will also need panela, eggs, cinnamon, sweet cloves, water, and oil. In a bowl, the eggs are beaten, and the bread is dipped in them.

The drink Horchata

Horchata is a rice-based drink that comes from Spain but is made in Honduras. Over time, when ingredients that were grown in Honduras were used instead, this drink became a unique Honduran treat.

This Honduran favorite is full of minerals like potassium, iron, phosphorus, and calcium, as well as vitamins C and E. It doesn’t have gluten, lactose, or casein, and it’s one of the most popular drinks in the country.

Pozol

The south of Honduras is where this traditional drink comes from. On a hot day, it’s a great way to cool off. This drink is usually served with a straw in a traditional wooden bowl called a “guacal.”

Pozol is a sweet, smooth drink that will make you want more and more of it. It is a hearty mix of corn, milk, sugar, and cinnamon. It’s usually eaten with sweet bread in the afternoon.

Guífiti

This alcoholic drink is very typical of Honduran food and comes from the time when the Garifuna people lived there. At its most basic, gufiti is an alcoholic drink made from rum that has been steeped with different herbs and spices.

The ingredients are put in a bottle with rum, and the bottle is set aside for a while. Honey, brandy, eucalyptus, sweet clove, chamomile, nutmeg, anise, cloves, and pepper are the main flavours. Guifiti can also have up to 38 other kinds of roots, leaves, flowers, and seeds, in addition to the ones listed above.

Honduran-Style Tameles/Nacatamales

Nacatamales are wrapped in banana or plantain leaves, just like tamales are in many other parts of the world. In Honduras, this kind of wrap is often called a “guineo.”

Both Nicaragua and Honduras love to eat these steamed corn cakes. To make nacatamales, you mix corn dough, meat, bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and rice together. Then, you put the mixture into banana leaves.

Once the dough is ready, it is wrapped in the leaves and baked. Even though the above ingredients are the most common ones used with dough, you can add a lot more if you want to.