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Puerto Rican sofrito is an aromatic blend of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices that is used as the base in most Latin American dishes. This blend of aromatics is wonderful for infusing your food with tons of flavor. It’s literally magic in a bottle!

I am blessed enough to have my mother make fresh batches of sofrito for me every few weeks. I am spoiled, I know! But I have her recipe handy if ever I run out and need to make a quick batch. Once you try homemade sofrito, you will NEVER buy store-bought sofrito again!

What is sofrito?

Sofrito is an aromatic blend of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices. Most Latin American countries use a variation of sofrito in their cuisine.

In Puerto Rico, we use garlic, onions, peppers, cilantro, culantro, tomatoes and olives. Cuban sofrito consists of garlic, onions and peppers and sometimes diced ham or chorizo and spices. In other countries, sofrito contains vinegar, annato for color and seasonings like sazon, oregano and cumin.

I use Healthy Rican Sazón. It’s free of harmful ingredients like MSG and dyes. Use my code: curlsnpearlsss for 10% off your order!

How to make sofrito?

To make sofrito, you will need to gather all of your ingredients. Most ingredients are easily accessible, however, items like ajíces dulces and culantro (recao) can sometimes be difficult to find in some grocery stores. Try looking for a Latin supermarket, they carry more variety of herbs and spices. If you can’t find ajíces dulces, you can omit them. If you can’t find culantro, you can substitute with extra cilantro.

Once you have all of your ingredients, thoroughly rinse and drain everything. Then you are going to blend everything together in a blender or food processor. Blending in batches in helpful, so that you don’t overfill your blender.

Start by blending your onions because they hold a lot of liquid and that will make it easier to blend everything else right in. I also like to add vinegar to the mixture because it brings out the flavors and also preserves the sofrito longer. A sprinkle of ground oregano also helps to enhance the flavors but that’s a matter of preference.

How to store sofrito?

Store your sofrito in a sealed container like a mason jar or glass tupperware. In the refrigerator it will keep up to 2-3 weeks. In the freezer, it will keep up to 6 months. Since a batch of fresh sofrito is usually too much to use right away, it’s a good idea to freeze most of it. You can also use an ice tray to freeze sofrito in easy ready-to-use portions. Each ice cube measures approximately 1 tablespoon.

How to use sofrito?

Sofrito is used as the base of soups, stews, beans and rice dishes. Some popular recipes include pollo guisado, carne guisada, picadillo, arroz con pollo, arroz moro, habichuelas guisadas and soups like sancocho. I also love adding sofrito to meatballs, meatloaf and burgers. It adds another dimension of flavor to your ground beef, delicious!

Each of these dishes, start with cooking sofrito with a little drizzle of olive oil. I usually also add tomato sauce and some chicken bouillon as I cook my sofrito, depending on what dish I’m cooking. This flavorful base will add so much dimension to your dishes. Once you start using sofrito in your cooking, you’ll be hooked for life!

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