After traveling through El Salvador for a few weeks during high school on a study abroad program, I became obsessed with the traditional and most widely eaten dish in the country: pupusas. It’s a delicious stuffed tortilla that can be filled with any combination of beans, cheese, carnitas and chicken. What’s not to like? My fondest memories of my time in El Salvador were roaming the streets of different towns and villages, hoping to find some women with a roadside pupusería stand making fresh, hot deliciousness for us to enjoy. So, years later, I decided it was time I tried my hand at one of my favorite Latin American dishes I’ve ever consumed. And boy let me tell you, it was quite the adventure.

I had a lovely helper trying out this recipe: Estela, who grew up making pupusas every day and to this day continues to make them for her family on a regular basis. And believe me, she knows what she is doing! Some of the measurements below are approximate, since Estela knows how to make these by heart.

Cabbage

It’s best to start with the cabbage so that it can begin to sit with the vinegar while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Finely chop a head of cabbage into thin pieces.

• add (about) 2 ounces of apple cider vinegar, does not need to be exact
• sprinkle oregano over the top
• sprinkle salt
• add ½ onion, chopped
• sprinkle oregano
• optional: use a peeler to shred 1 carrot

The longer you let this sit, the better. The cider vinegar will continue to ferment the cabbage, and according to Estela this mixture can sit up to a month in the fridge and not only still be okay to eat, but it just gets more and more delicious every day!

Beans

• 2 cans of refried beans
• blend 1/4 onion, 1 tomato and ¼ green bell pepper, if you so desire
• add oil to the pan and mash beans, let sit and brown for about 30 minutes
• sprinkle cumin over the top

Estela says that if you want to do chicken or pork, you can also blend them with the onion, tomato, and pepper to be stuffed inside the pupusas, and add cheese if you wish. This recipe is very flexible, and almost all combinations will taste delicious!

You need approximately 16 ounces of cheese. Monterey jack and/or mozzarella are good, but I just used a 4 cheese Mexican blend that worked wonders as well. You can also add cotija cheese into the mix, which is a delicious and salty cow’s milk cheese from Mexico, or just add it as a sprinkle on top. But according to Estela, sticking with monterey jack or mozzarella yields a more authentic flavor.

After the beans have cooked for 30 minutes, let them cool then add the cheese.

They should look a bit like this:

Maize

For the maize, Maseca was a brand that was recommended to me, and you should be able to find it at your local grocery store. We added approximately even parts flour and warm water, and mixed up the dough with our (clean and washed) hands, as Estela informed me that’s the way you do it. We ended up using the entire bag of flour, and it was a good amount to do given the two cans of beans and two bags of cheese with which we were filling the pupusas.

Making the Pupusas

Take out a palm-sized ball of the maize dough, which should be thoroughly mixed to a good consistency, and not runny. Pat the dough to flatten as if you were going to make a tortilla, and then add a nice dollop of the bean/cheese mixture to the middle of your tortilla.

Begin folding up the sides of the tortilla around your beans and cheese, and seal them at the top so that there are no holes. Begin patting this ball flat again until it makes a flattened “tortilla”-like saucer that has all of the scrumptious fillings on the inside, as shown below.

Add some oil to both sides of the pupusa, and plop on the stove. Flip until both sides are golden brown and the cheese has melted on the inside.

And the finished product! Add some of the cabbage over the top, and either homemade salsa (for the extra adventurous souls out there), or the alternative which we opted for: store bought salsa. Either option will prove delicious. Cotija cheese sprinkled on top-optional!

ENJOY!

(yields about 28 pupusas)