National dish

What is the national dish of Costa Rica?

The national dish of Costa Rica is gallo pinto, meaning "spotted rooster": day-old white rice fried with black beans and their cooking liquid, onion, sweet pepper and cilantro, seasoned with salsa Lizano. It is eaten mostly at breakfast with eggs, fried plantain and natilla. No law makes it official, but it is the dish Costa Ricans and food writers name first.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

What is gallo pinto?

Gallo pinto, often just called pinto, is rice and beans fried together in one pan until every grain of rice is stained by the beans. The speckled look is where the name comes from: "spotted rooster". The origin of the name has never been settled, but that resemblance is the usual explanation.

The dish goes back to the colonial period. Beans had been grown by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years; rice arrived with the Spanish; and historians see a strong African influence in the way the two are cooked together, as in many rice-and-beans dishes across the Americas.

It is a breakfast dish first. A Costa Rican breakfast plate is gallo pinto with a fried or scrambled egg, fried ripe plantain, natilla (a thick, slightly sour cream), cheese and a tortilla or bread. It is cheap and eaten in every region and every social class.

A study by Costa Rica's Ministry of Health, cited in the Spanish-language Wikipedia article on Costa Rican food, found that Costa Ricans get about a third of their daily calories and 34% of their protein from this preparation. That is why it is called the "plato de bandera", the flag dish.

How gallo pinto is made

Two details separate gallo pinto from plain rice and beans, and our gallo pinto recipe is built around them:

Day-old rice: 500 g of white rice cooked the day before and chilled. Fresh warm rice turns to paste in the pan.
The bean liquid: 400 g of cooked black beans go in with 120 ml of their dark cooking liquid, unrinsed. That liquid is what dyes the rice.
Salsa Lizano: 3 tablespoons, bubbled 2 minutes before the rice goes in. Without it, Costa Ricans would say you have made rice and beans, not pinto.
The base and finish: onion, red bell pepper and garlic sweated 6 to 8 minutes first, the rice folded in for 5 to 8 minutes until the liquid is gone, chopped cilantro off the heat.

What is salsa Lizano?

Salsa Lizano is a thin brown sauce created in 1920 by the Costa Rican Lizano company. It is made with vegetables such as onion, carrot, cauliflower and cucumber, plus sugar, salt, mustard, pepper and turmeric, and tastes tangy and slightly sweet. Costa Ricans compare it to Worcestershire sauce and often call it salsa inglesa.

It goes on gallo pinto and tamales, but also on carne mechada (shredded beef), green mango and fried snacks, and it is mixed into mayonnaise and other dressings. A bottle usually sits on the table so everyone can add their own.

Costa Rica or Nicaragua?

Gallo pinto is also the national dish of neighbouring Nicaragua, and both countries claim it. The two versions are not identical: Nicaraguan gallo pinto is made mainly with red beans, while salsa Lizano has become part of the identity of the Costa Rican version. See the national dish of Nicaragua for the other side.

Inside Costa Rica the dish changes by region:

Central Valley: moister and less fatty, with cilantro, sweet pepper, onion and often salsa Lizano.
Guanacaste: fattier and more toasted, with more lard, garlic and onion, and no cilantro.
Limón, on the Caribbean coast: called rice and beans, cooked with red beans, coconut milk and Panamanian chili, a dish brought by Jamaican workers from the 1870s.

Other dishes to know from Costa Rica

If gallo pinto is breakfast, the casado is lunch. Here the rice and beans are served side by side rather than mixed, with a picadillo, fried ripe plantain, a cabbage salad and a piece of meat or fish. The name means "married", and several stories explain it; none is proven. The plate took its current form in the 1960s, when growing numbers of office and shop workers in San José wanted a home-style lunch and the city's small restaurants, the sodas, began serving one.

Olla de carne is the Sunday pot: bone-in beef shank simmered 2 to 2.5 hours, then cassava, corn, chayote, squash, potato, sweet potato and green plantain added by cooking time. It is served in three parts: broth, meat and vegetables, and rice.

Chifrijo is another contender: a bowl of rice and beans topped with chicharrón (fried seasoned pork) and pico de gallo, sometimes with avocado and corn chips. It appears beside casado, gallo pinto and olla de carne on lists of the country's national dishes.

Costa Rica shares much of this table with its neighbours, from rice and beans to plantain; see our guide to Central American food. All three dishes, with step-by-step methods, are on our page about the food of Costa Rica.

The recipes

Questions people ask

Is gallo pinto from Costa Rica or Nicaragua?

Both countries make it and both call it their national dish. Nicaragua's version is made mainly with red beans, while salsa Lizano has become part of the identity of Costa Rica's.

What does gallo pinto mean?

Gallo pinto means "spotted rooster" in Spanish, usually explained by the speckled look of the beans against the white rice. The true origin of the name is not known.

What is served with gallo pinto?

At breakfast it comes with fried or scrambled eggs, fried ripe plantain, natilla (a thick sour cream), cheese and a corn tortilla or bread.

What is the difference between gallo pinto and casado?

In gallo pinto the rice and beans are fried together; in a casado they are served side by side, with meat, salad, plantain and a picadillo. Gallo pinto is usually breakfast, casado lunch.

Can you make gallo pinto without salsa Lizano?

You can, but most Costa Ricans consider salsa Lizano part of the dish's identity. The Guanacaste version leans instead on lard, garlic and onion.

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