Central America
Honduran Cuisine

Honduran cuisine is a fusion of indigenous (Lenca) cuisine, Spanish cuisine, Caribbean cuisine and African cuisine. There are also dishes from the Garifuna people. Coconut and coconut milk are featured in both sweet and savory dishes. Regional specialties include fried fish, tamales, carne asada and baleadas. Other popular dishes include: meat roasted with chismol and carne asada, chicken with rice and corn, and fried fish with pickled onions and jalapeños. In the coastal areas and in the Bay Islands, seafood and some meats are prepared in many ways, some of which include coconut milk.


Among the soups the Hondurans enjoy are bean soup, mondongo soup (tripe soup), seafood soups and beef soups. Generally all of these soups are mixed with plantains, yuca, and cabbage, and served with corn tortillas.


Other typical dishes are the montucas or corn tamale, stuffed tortillas, and tamales wrapped in plantain leaves. Also part of Honduran typical dishes is an abundant selection of tropical fruits such as papaya, pineapple, plum, sapote, passion fruit and bananas which are prepared in many ways while they are still green.


Soft drinks are often drunk with dinner or lunch.


Hondurans usually have a large, hearty breakfast. It typically consists of fried eggs (whole or scrambled), refried beans, Honduran salty sour cream (mantequilla), hard olancho cheese, avocado, sweet fried plantains, and tortillas. It is common for most households to first prepare tortillas, a staple for nearly every dish, which are used throughout the rest of the day.


Other breakfast favorites include carne asada (roasted meat) and Honduran spicy sausages (chorizo). Like many other places throughout the world, a good breakfast will be accompanied with hot, dark—in this case Honduran-grown—coffee.  


Street vendors often sell breakfast baleadas made of the flour tortillas, toppings such as eggs, meat, and even pickled onions, and small tamales made of sweet yellow corn dough, called tamalitos de Elote, eaten with sour cream; fresh Horchata and posole is also common.


Corn, or maíz, is a staple in Honduran cuisine. Eating corn comes to Hondurans as an inheritance of their Maya-Lenca ancestors; the Maya believed corn to be sacred, and that the father gods created men from it.

Pinchos Americanos "Olla" Soup, a typical Honduran soup made with beef broth, squash, yucca and common Central American vegetables. Honduran Breakfast, Baleadas and Pastelitos filled with chicken. An open homemade baleada with eggs, butter, cheese and beans Fried Yojoa Fish from Lake Yojoa An Anafre