Guide

Traditional food of Chile: 14 dishes to know

Chilean food combines Spanish cooking, Mapuche traditions and later German and Italian influences, with fresh corn, beans, potatoes, beef and seafood from a very long coastline. The signature base is pino, minced beef and onion. The most emblematic dishes are empanadas de pino, pastel de choclo, cazuela and curanto, the earth-oven feast of Chiloé.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

What Chilean food is built on

Chilean cooking mixes Spanish traditions with the culture of the Mapuche people and the influence of later German, Italian and French immigrants. Its staples are fresh corn, called choclo, beans, potatoes, pumpkin and beef, and, along thousands of kilometres of Pacific coast, fish and shellfish.

Two building blocks come back again and again. Pino, minced beef cooked with plenty of onion and paprika, fills empanadas and pastel de choclo. Fresh corn ground with basil goes into humitas and pastel de choclo. On the table sit marraqueta, the crisp everyday bread, and pebre, the condiment served with bread before meals. The Mapuche contributed merkén, dried and smoked chili and coriander ground into a fine powder.

Main dishes

Chilean home cooking is a cooking of stews, pies and corn, built from a short list of ingredients: beef, onion, potato, pumpkin, beans and choclo.

Empanadas de pino — Baked wheat pastries filled with pino, one black olive, a few raisins and a piece of hard-boiled egg. They are eaten in the largest numbers in September, during the Fiestas Patrias independence celebrations. They are the dish most often called the national dish of Chile.
Pastel de choclo — Pino, chicken, olives, raisins and egg covered with a thick paste of fresh corn ground with basil, dusted with sugar and baked in a clay dish until the top caramelises. It is a summer dish, made when fresh corn is in season.
Cazuela — A clear broth served with one bone-in piece of beef or chicken per bowl, a whole potato, a wedge of pumpkin and a piece of corn on the cob. On the island of Chiloé it can be made with dried mussels or luche seaweed instead of meat.
Porotos granados — A stew of fresh white shelling beans cooked with ground choclo and other vegetables. Like pastel de choclo and humitas, it shows how much of Chilean home cooking rests on corn.
Charquicán — A thick stew of potatoes, corn and other vegetables cooked with charqui, dried beef, or with ordinary beef. It is one of the everyday family stews of central Chile.
Humitas — Fresh corn ground with onion, basil and butter or lard, wrapped in corn husks, tied and boiled or baked. They are eaten savoury with a tomato salad or sweet with added sugar.

From the sea

With the Pacific along its whole length, Chile cooks a wide range of seafood: conger eel, razor clams baked with Parmesan (machas a la parmesana), mussels, clams and loco, the Chilean abalone, served in a rich stew called chupe, in a clay pot.

Curanto — The traditional feast of the Chiloé archipelago: shellfish, meat, sausages, potatoes and potato breads called milcao and chapalele are layered over hot stones in a pit and covered with pangue leaves and turf. The method may be over 11,000 years old; a pot version, curanto en olla, is cooked in central Chile.
Caldillo de congrio — A soup of conger eel: a stock of fish heads, onion, garlic and coriander, finished with tomato, cream, potatoes and pieces of the fish. It is found across the country, and the poet Pablo Neruda wrote an ode to it, the Oda al caldillo de congrio.
Paila marina — A soup of shellfish and several kinds of cooked fish with herbs. Where cazuela is the soup of meat and vegetables, paila marina puts the coast in a bowl.

Street food, sweets and drinks

Immigration left its mark on everyday Chilean food: sauerkraut on hot dogs and kuchen, fruit-filled cakes, came with German settlers and are now found across the country.

Completo — The Chilean hot dog, twice the size of an American one. The completo italiano is topped with chopped tomato, mashed avocado and mayonnaise, the three colours of the Italian flag. It appeared in Santiago in the 1920s.
Sopaipillas — Round, flat discs of fried dough, made with cooked pumpkin in central Chile. They are eaten with pebre or mustard as street food, or soaked in chancaca syrup with orange peel and cinnamon as sopaipillas pasadas, traditionally on rainy days.
Mote con huesillo — A cold summer drink of dried peaches cooked in sugar, water and cinnamon, poured over husked wheat (mote). It is sold from street carts and served in a tall glass with a spoon.
Leche asada — A baked milk dessert with caramel. It is similar to a panna cotta, but set with eggs instead of gelatine.
Alfajor — A biscuit sandwich filled with manjar, the Chilean name for dulce de leche. Manjar is made by cooking milk and sugar down into a thick, spreadable caramel.

Chile and its neighbours

Several of these dishes are shared across South American cuisine: humitas, pastel de choclo and empanadas exist from Peru to Argentina in different versions. Compare with the traditional food of Peru and the traditional food of Argentina. What sets Chile apart is the basil in its corn dishes, the olive-raisin-egg trio inside the pino, and the shellfish cooking of the south. Inside the country, the Chiloé archipelago has its own repertoire, from curanto to a cazuela made with dried mussels or seaweed, while on Easter Island ceviche is sometimes prepared with coconut milk.

Cook Chilean food at home

Empanadas de pino, pastel de choclo and cazuela each have a full recipe with quantities and step-by-step methods in the Copper app. You will find them on our page dedicated to Chilean recipes.

The recipes

Questions people ask

What is the most popular food in Chile?

Empanadas de pino are the best known and are eaten in large numbers during the September Fiestas Patrias. Pastel de choclo, cazuela, humitas and the completo hot dog are also among the most common dishes.

What do Chileans eat in the evening?

Chileans have once (or las onces), a light meal built around bread taken in the late afternoon or evening. Marraqueta with mashed avocado is its most common element.

Is Chilean food spicy?

Chilean food is generally not spicy. Heat is mostly added at the table, with pebre, a condiment served with bread, or merkén, a Mapuche seasoning of dried and smoked chili and coriander ground to a fine powder.

What is curanto?

Curanto is the traditional dish of the Chiloé archipelago: shellfish, meat, potatoes and potato breads cooked over hot stones in a pit covered with leaves and turf.

What do Chileans drink with their food?

Wine, chicha (a sweet fermented grape drink) and pisco mixed with cola as piscola are common. In summer, mote con huesillo, cold peach juice with husked wheat, is the traditional non-alcoholic drink.

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