3 dishes people actually cook in Guatemala: what they are, how long they take, and what you need to buy.
What can you cook from Guatemala? 3 traditional Guatemala dishes, from Kak-ik (100 min, the quickest) to Tamales (210 min, the longest). Each recipe is written step by step with full ingredient lists, free to read.
Guatemala on the map. Drag to spin the planet.
A Q'eqchi' Maya turkey soup whose red broth comes from a recado of toasted guaque, pasa and cobanero chilies blended with charred tomatoes and achiote.
Guatemala national dish, a Maya-Kaqchikel stew whose sauce is built entirely on dry-toasted pumpkin and sesame seeds ground with charred tomatoes and dried chiles.
A corn masa parcel boiled in banana leaves around a red recado thickened with toasted pumpkin and sesame seeds.
Copper documents three dishes from Guatemala: Kak-ik, Pepian and Tamales. Garlic and onion each appear in more than one recipe. All three are simmered. Not one needs an oven — they cook entirely on the hob. Between them they use 28 different ingredients.
The three recipes need 28 ingredients between them, of which 6 are shared by more than one dish. Pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds the hardest to find: of the 586 dishes in Copper's atlas, 3 use pumpkin seeds and 9 use sesame seeds. Every ingredient list on this page is complete, with quantities, and free to read.
Kak-ik is the quickest at 100 minutes. Tamales is the longest at 210 minutes, most of it unattended. The median is 100 minutes — a weekend dish rather than a weeknight one.
None of the dishes from Guatemala here is rated easy, but every one has the full method written out step by step, free to read. Kak-ik is the shortest way in.
Guatemala is part of Central American.
Countries close to Guatemala on the globe — and close on the plate.
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