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Traditional food of Costa Rica: 14 dishes to know

Traditional Costa Rican food is built on rice and black beans, often eaten three times a day, with corn, plantain, cassava and a bottle of salsa Lizano on the table. Cooking is simple: frying, slow simmering and wrapping in leaves. The dishes to know first are gallo pinto at breakfast, the casado at lunch, olla de carne on Sundays and tamales at Christmas.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

What Costa Rican food is built on

Rice and black beans are the base of most traditional Costa Rican meals and are often served three times a day. Around them come corn (for tortillas, tamales and pancakes), plantain in its green and ripe forms, cassava, chayote and fresh cheese. Salsa Lizano, a thin brown vegetable sauce, seasons beans, rice and meat, and natilla, a soured cream, softens almost everything.

The cooking is home cooking rather than restaurant cooking: one-pot stews, griddled corn, fried plantain and plates assembled from several small preparations. The best-known of them is the national dish of Costa Rica, gallo pinto, but it only makes sense next to the dishes below.

Most of these dishes are eaten in sodas, the small family-run restaurants found in every town, where the menu is short and the casado is the default lunch. The country is small, but the Caribbean province of Limón cooks differently from the Central Valley and from Guanacaste, the dry northwest known for its salted cheeses and fresh cuajada curds.

Breakfast and the everyday plate

A Costa Rican day starts and ends with rice and beans, served in two different ways.

Gallo pinto — Day-old white rice fried with black beans and their dark cooking liquid, onion, sweet pepper and cilantro, then seasoned with salsa Lizano. It is the standard breakfast, served with eggs, fried ripe plantain, natilla and a corn tortilla.
Casado — The lunch plate of workers and roadside sodas: rice and beans set side by side with a piece of meat, a salad, fried ripe plantain and a picadillo. The name means "married", for the rice and beans that share the plate.
Chorreadas — Corn pancakes cooked on a griddle and served with natilla. They are eaten at breakfast or in the afternoon with coffee.

Soups and Sunday dishes

When there is more time, Costa Rican cooks turn to slow pots and festive rice dishes. These are the meals of weekends, birthdays and family visits, when the whole household eats together.

Olla de carne — A beef stew in which bone-in shank simmers for hours before cassava, corn, chayote, potatoes, sweet potato and green plantain go in by cooking time. It is a weekend dish, served in three parts: broth in a bowl, meat and vegetables on a plate, white rice on the side.
Arroz con pollo — Chicken cooked with rice, achiote, spices and vegetables, the centrepiece of birthdays and family gatherings. It is traditionally served with potato chips and a garden salad.
Picadillo — A hash of finely chopped vegetables such as chayote, sometimes cooked with beef. It is a side on the casado and a filling for tortillas.

Bocas and street food

Bars serve bocas, small plates ordered with a beer, and several of them have become national dishes in their own right.

Chifrijo — A bowl of beans in their broth and rice, topped with fried pork and chimichurri, the Costa Rican name for a fresh tomato, onion, cilantro and lime salsa. The name joins chicharrón and frijoles; it was born in the bars of San José, credited to Cordero's Bar in Tibás.
Patacones — Slices of green plantain fried, smashed flat and fried again until crisp. They are served with a black bean dip, especially on the coasts.
Ceviche — Raw seafood cut small and marinated in lime juice with cilantro and onion. It is sold in bars and beach stands and eaten with crackers or patacones.

The Caribbean coast of Limón

The province of Limón received Jamaican workers from 1872 onwards to build the railway, and it still cooks with coconut milk and hot chilli, much like the rest of the Caribbean shore of Central America.

Rice and beans — The Caribbean version of gallo pinto, made with red beans, coconut milk and Panamanian chilli. It is usually served with fish or chicken and fried plantain.
Rondón — A fish stew cooked slowly in coconut milk. It is the other signature dish of the Limón coast.

Sweets and drinks

Costa Rica grows both coffee and sugar cane, and both turn up at the table several times a day. Sweet dishes are simple and rely on corn, milk, cane sugar and tropical fruit, often sold as fruit salads of watermelon, mango, papaya and pineapple.

Tamales — Corn masa filled with pork, rice and vegetables, sometimes olives, wrapped in banana or plantain leaves and boiled. They are the Christmas food of Costa Rica, made in large batches by the whole family.
Tres leches — A sponge cake soaked in three kinds of milk,. It is a standard dessert at parties and in bakeries.
Coffee and agua dulce — Coffee is brewed strong in a chorreador, a cloth filter hung on a wooden stand, and drunk at breakfast and in the afternoon. Agua dulce, raw cane sugar dissolved in hot water, is the traditional alternative for children and early mornings.

Cook Costa Rican food at home

Three of these dishes have full recipes in Copper, with quantities and step-by-step methods: gallo pinto, the casado and olla de carne. Start with gallo pinto: it needs rice cooked the day before, so it is the easiest way to learn the rhythm of a Costa Rican kitchen. Once you have rice, black beans and salsa Lizano at home, the casado follows naturally, and olla de carne is the project for a slow Sunday. You will find all of them on our page about the food of Costa Rica.

To see how the same rice-and-beans logic changes across the border, read our guides to the traditional food of Nicaragua and the traditional food of Panama.

The recipes

Questions people ask

What is the most popular food in Costa Rica?

Gallo pinto and the casado are the most eaten dishes. Gallo pinto is rice fried with black beans, served at breakfast; the casado is the lunch plate of rice, beans, meat, salad and fried plantain.

What do people in Costa Rica eat for breakfast?

A typical breakfast is gallo pinto with eggs, fried ripe plantain, natilla (soured cream), a corn tortilla and coffee or orange juice.

Is Costa Rican food spicy?

No. Costa Rican food is mild and seasoned mostly with onion, sweet pepper, cilantro and salsa Lizano. Hot chilli is more common on the Caribbean coast, in dishes such as rice and beans.

What is salsa Lizano?

A thin, slightly sweet brown sauce made from vegetables and spices. Costa Ricans add it to gallo pinto, beans, rice and meat, and keep a bottle on most tables.

What do Costa Ricans eat at Christmas?

Tamales: corn masa filled with pork, rice and vegetables, wrapped in banana or plantain leaves and boiled. Families make them in large batches in December.

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