Sofrito Recipe 101: How to Make Puerto Rico’s Essential Base
- March 2021
- By Michelle Ezratty Murphy
- Recipe from Puerto Rico
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- (23)
A sofrito recipe is a non-negotiatiable in the Puerto Rican cocina. ”If you’re cooking Boricua, you gotta have sofrito,” says Michelle Ezratty Murphy, one of our favorite homecooks and the winner of our first-ever Familia Kitchen Recipe Contest for her Puerto Rican arroz con pollo.
“This is the sofrito recipe we make in my house.” And it is phenomenal, we assure you. It’s one of our essential ingreidents in the Familia Kitchen test kitchen.
What Is Sofrito?
Not sure what sofrito adds to food or how it’s made? You’ve probably tasted it without knowing you were eating it, if you’ve ever had a Puerto Rican dish, says Michelle. Sofrito is a savory blend of mostly aromatics, including (depending on who’s making it) onions, green pepper, aji dulce, tomato, garlic, culantro and/or cilantro, and other spices. All of these are sautéd in olive oil and the resulting sauce is used to flavor traditional dishes like beef picadillo, pastelón (Puerto Rican ”lasagna” made with plantains instead of pasta layers, and, of course, the dish that inspired us to launch Familia Kitchen: Arroz con pollo.
”I blend it in big batches and then freeze it in ice-cube trays. Then, it’s easy to pop out the frozen sofrito squares from the trays and store them in zip bags in my freezer for easy storage,” says Michelle.
”I like to use sofrito in soups and asopaos — things that are stewed — because garlic can get bitter when not first sautéed. My rule is to use sofrito in a recipe for something that is going to simmer a while on my stove,” she explains.
“I make my sofrito from memory now, after years of whipping it up to use in soups, stews, rice and beef dishes for that essential Boricua sabor que siempre satisfies. ¡Buen provecho!”
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