Nicaraguan cuisine


Nicaraguan cuisine includes a mixture of indigenous Native American cuisine, Spanish cuisine, and Creole cuisine. Despite the blending and incorporation of pre-Columbian and Spanish-influenced cuisine, traditional cuisine differs on the Pacific coast from the Caribbean coast. While the Pacific coast's main staple revolves around beef, poultry, local fruits, and corn, the Caribbean coast's cuisine makes use of seafood and coconut.

Cuisine

Main staples

As in many other Latin American countries, corn is a staple. It is used in many of the widely consumed dishes, such as nacatamal, and indio viejo. Corn is not only used in food; it is also an ingredient for drinks such as pinolillo and chicha as well as in sweets and desserts. Other staples are rice and beans. Rice is eaten when corn is not, and beans are consumed as a cheap protein by the majority of Nicaraguans. It is common for rice and beans to be eaten as a breakfast dish. There are many meals including these two staples; one popular dish, gallo pinto, is often served as lunch, sometimes with eggs. Nicaraguans do not limit their diet solely to corn, rice, and beans. Many Nicaraguans have small gardens of their own full of vegetables. From time to time, flowers are incorporated into their meals.
Commonly used ingredients are peanuts, cabbage carrots, beets, butternut squash, plantains, bananas, fresh ginger, onion, potato, peppers, jocote, grosella, mimbro, mango, papaya, tamarind, pipian, apples, avocado, yuca, and quequisque. Herbs such as culantro, oregano, and achiote are also used in cooking.

Typical Nicaraguan dishes

Platos

Refrescos (drinks)

Nicaraguan cuisine makes use of fruits, some of which are only grown in that particular region due to their location. Many fruits are made into drinks, such as melon, papaya, guayaba, guanábana, coconut, pineapple, and pitahaya. Pinolillo is very popular among Nicaraguans, as many times they refer to themselves as pinoleros, which means "pinolillo drinkers". Many drinks are also made from grains and seeds, mixed with milk, water, sugar and ice. Other drinks include: