National dish

What is the national dish of Argentina?

Argentina has no official national dish, but asado is the one most often cited: beef ribs, flank steak, chorizo and morcilla cooked slowly over wood or charcoal embers on a grill called a parrilla, seasoned only with coarse salt and served with chimichurri. Empanadas and locro, a corn stew eaten on the 25 May national holiday, are its main rivals.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

Is asado Argentina's national dish?

Not by law: no Argentine law or decree names a national dish. But no other dish comes close in the way Argentines talk about their own food. The standard reference on Argentine cuisine puts it plainly: beyond asado, no other dish more genuinely matches the national identity.

Asado is both a way of cooking and a social event. It is the usual centrepiece of the Sunday family lunch, the most important meal of the week, and it is cooked by one designated person, the asador or parrillero. The word also names a cut: asado de tira, long strips of flank-cut beef ribs.

Asado is not exclusive to Argentina. It is just as central in Uruguay and is also a national tradition in Chile and Paraguay, which is why neighbouring countries often give the same answer.

How an Argentine asado is cooked

Everything rests on slow heat and restraint. The fire is lit with hardwood charcoal or native woods such as quebracho; pine and eucalyptus are avoided because their resins taint the meat. The cook waits 30 to 40 minutes for grey embers and never cooks over a flame.

The grate sits about 25 cm above an even bed of embers: you should be able to hold your hand there for 5 seconds. The meat is not marinated and gets no oil, only coarse salt just before it goes on. Ribs go bone side down and cook for 1 to 1.5 hours, and each piece is turned once and only once. A full asado usually takes around two hours. Our asado recipe walks through the timings.

Regional styles change the fire, not the principle. In Patagonia, where lamb and goat are eaten more than beef, whole lambs and goats are fixed on a stake driven into the ground beside live coals, a method called asado al palo or a la estaca. In the countryside, meat is also cooked al disco, on the worn-out disc of a plough.

The order of an asado

An asado is served in courses, as each cut comes off the grill:

Chorizo and morcilla (blood sausage) first, often with offal such as sweetbreads, or a provoleta, provolone melted on the grill with oregano. A chorizo in bread is a choripán.
Asado de tira (short ribs), then vacío (flank steak) and sometimes matambre.
Chimichurri: parsley, garlic, dried oregano, vinegar and oil, with mild red pepper rather than hot chilli. It is a table sauce, never brushed on during cooking.
Salads and bread: a simple tomato, lettuce and onion salad or ensalada rusa, with red wine.

Empanadas and locro, the other candidates

Empanadas are the most common answer after asado. They are made all over the country with regional fillings, and the pleated edge, the repulgue, tells you which filling is inside, since they are ordered by the dozen. In the classic beef version the meat is cut by knife, seasoned with cumin and paprika, and the filling is chilled until the fat sets before it is sealed in a beef-fat dough. See our Argentine empanadas recipe.

Each province defends its own style. The salteña from Salta adds potato to the filling, the tucumana from Tucumán is filled with matambre cut by knife, and both can be baked or fried. The northwest is generally considered the place to eat them.

Locro is a slow-cooked stew of white corn, beans, squash and beef or pork that spread from the northwest to the rest of the country. It is eaten in huge quantities on 25 May, which marks the first Argentine government of 1810, and on 9 July, Independence Day. Spanish-language sources describe it as one of Argentina's national dishes for these patriotic dates, while noting that no law has ever made it official.

Other dishes to know from Argentina

The milanesa came with Italian immigration and is now everyday food. Thin beef cutlets soak at least 45 minutes in beaten egg with garlic and parsley, are breaded twice and fried two at a time at 180 °C. Served a caballo, it comes with a fried egg on top. With two fried eggs and French fries it becomes a milanesa completa, a classic of the short-order menus Argentines call minutas.

For the same grilling culture across the river, see the national dish of Uruguay, and explore the rest of South American food. All three recipes are on our page about the food of Argentina.

The recipes

Questions people ask

Is asado from Argentina or Uruguay?

Both. Asado is a shared tradition of the two countries; one difference is that in Uruguay it is usually grilled directly over wood embers rather than charcoal.

What is served with asado?

Chimichurri and salsa criolla (tomato and onion in vinegar), a simple salad or ensalada rusa, bread and red wine.

What is the difference between asado and barbecue?

Asado is cooked slowly over embers, never flames, for around two hours, and the meat gets no marinade or sauce, only salt.

When do Argentines eat locro?

Mostly on the two patriotic holidays, 25 May and 9 July.

How do you pronounce asado?

Ah-SAH-doh, with a soft d.

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