The Familia Kitchen Story: It All Started With Arroz con Pollo

Arroz con pollo is the dish that dreamed up Familia Kitchen. One weekend, I was roaming online, looking for a dominguero — one of those slow-simmering recipes that take all Sunday to make. Specifically, I was searching for an arroz con pollo like my Puerto Rican mother, Marisa. Mom was many states away, and I was missing home. 

That’s when I chanced upon an arroz con pollo from one of the big food websites. (As in: really big. You’ve cooked from it.) 

The recipe directions started with: Chop a jalapeño. 

Double take. What? Actually, no: Don’t, please.

Because jalapeños — as earthy and spicy and delicioso as they are — never have and never will be used in Puerto Rican cooking. Just as a Mexican recipe will never start with: Make recaito. Or a Peruvian dish’s directions will never say: Prepare masa harina.

That food website mixed us all up into one -faceless Latino comida bucket. Which we are not. Yes, we come from 20 Spanish-speaking places in this Americas hemisphere.

Yes, we are Latinos. 

But no — we are not a mono-cultura. We do not have one cuisine. We have 20 different places we need to cook our way home to. By increasingly more of us. The U.S. Latino population grew 23% between 2010 and 2020. In that decade, the general U.S. population grew 7%, according to Pew Research Center. We are 62.1 million strong: that’s 19% of all Americans.

That’s when I knew: We needed a food website of our own. To reflect the way we actually cook. It would be real, trusted and authentic. We call this abuela cooking. 

Because abuelas know. If you ask 100 grandmothers in Puerto Rico how to make arroz con pollo, not one will mention jalapeño. Ever.

Familia Kitchen launched in October 2020. My co-founder Lisa and I have since published hundreds of family-famous recipes and food stories. Our goal is tens of thousands so that we can create the most complete treasury of authentic Latino cooking.

Each dish is made with amor, traditional ingredients and respeto. It’s guaranteed to taste delicioso because it comes from the kitchens of abuelas and abuelos and moms and dads and tíos and tías and suegras and primos whose families have been making this very recipe for decades. Maybe even centuries. To gather dishes each month, we host a new recipe contest to celebrate the way we cook and eat across all 20 Latino destinations. 

Our first Familia Kitchen Recipe Contest was, of course: arroz con pollo. 

This website and our newsletters, recipe contests, live events, and Familia Kitchen Cookbook celebrate how we cook our way home together. For inspiration and comida intel, Familia Kitchen turns to you, our community, for trusted recommendations of dishes you would really, truly serve the people you love. A big abrazo to the homecooks who share your food stories, recipes and family photos. Together, we preserve and celebrate authentic dishes that connect where we came from to who we are today and tomorrow — as we pass on our culinary heritage to the next generation.

Familia Kitchen is for all of you who long to cook your way home to the Spanish-speaking places we come from. It’s also for everyone who loves our food and heritage.

Wherever home is for you: bienvenidos. 

Welcome to our Familia Kitchen.

Kim Caviness, co-founder, CEO and editor in chief