Guatemalan cooking comes straight out of the Maya kitchen. Corn, black beans, squash seeds, tomatoes and dried chiles were on the table long before the Spanish arrived, and they still do most of the work today.
What makes it Guatemalan is how those ingredients are handled. Seeds and chiles are toasted on a comal, then ground into thick, dark recados, the sauces behind stews like pepián and kak’ik.
Here are the twelve ingredients behind a plate of pepián, a basket of tortillas and a Sunday desayuno chapín, and what each one is doing.
Guatemalan Ingredients at a Glance
| Ingredient | What it is | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| Maíz | Corn, ground into masa | Tortillas, tamales, chuchitos, atol |
| Frijoles negros | Black beans | Frijoles volteados, parados, rellenitos |
| Chiles guaque, pasa & cobanero | Dried chiles, mild to smoky-hot | Pepián, kak’ik, recados |
| Pepitoria | Toasted, ground squash seeds | Pepián, jocón, mango con pepita |
| Miltomate & tomate | Tomatillo and red tomato | Jocón, chirmol |
| Achiote | Annatto seed paste | Tamales colorados, recado rojo |
| Güisquil & ayote | Chayote and winter squash | Pepián, caldo de res, ayote en dulce |
| Chipilín & hierba mora | Leafy greens | Tamalitos de chipilín, soups |
| Plátano | Plantain | Fried at breakfast, rellenitos, mole de plátano |
| Cacao | Chocolate | Hot chocolate, rellenitos, mole |
| Queso & crema | Fresh cheese, aged cheese, thick cream | Breakfast, enchiladas, beans |
| Café | Highland coffee | Every morning, with sweet bread |
Corn and Beans
1. Maíz
In the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the K’iche’ Maya, the gods make the first humans out of corn dough. In Guatemala, corn is still treated that way. Many families eat tortillas at every meal, patted by hand and cooked on a clay comal.
Guatemalan tortillas are smaller and thicker than Mexican ones. The same masa becomes tamales, chuchitos and hot corn drinks like atol de elote and atol shuco, made from fermented black corn.
2. Frijoles Negros
Black beans are the other half of every Guatemalan meal. They’re served two ways. Frijoles parados are whole beans in their broth. Frijoles volteados are mashed and fried until they’re thick enough to flip out of the pan in one piece.
Volteados sit next to eggs, fried plantains and crema at breakfast. Sweetened with sugar and cinnamon, they also become the filling for rellenitos, below.
The Recado Makers
3. Chile Guaque, Chile Pasa and Chile Cobanero
Guatemalan food isn’t especially hot, but it runs on dried chiles. Chile guaque is similar to the Mexican guajillo, mild and fruity. Chile pasa is dark and raisiny, like a pasilla. Both are toasted and ground into recados for their color and depth.
Chile cobanero is the exception. It’s a small, fiery chile from Cobán, in Alta Verapaz, dried over wood smoke. It gives kak’ik, the Q’eqchi’ turkey soup, its smoky heat.
4. Pepitoria
Pepitoria is toasted, ground squash seed. It’s what thickens pepián, together with toasted sesame seed, and it gives the stew its nutty, slightly grainy body.
Ground pepitoria with salt is also a street snack seasoning. Vendors sprinkle it over sliced green mango with lime, and it goes into jocón and many other recados.
5. Miltomate and Tomate
Miltomate is the Guatemalan name for the tomatillo, the tart green fruit in a papery husk. Blended with cilantro, green onion and pepitoria, it makes the green sauce of jocón.
Red tomatoes are just as important. Roasted on the comal and crushed with onion and cilantro, they become chirmol, the everyday salsa served with grilled meat.
6. Achiote
Achiote, or annatto, is a brick-red seed with a mild, earthy flavor. Ground into recado rojo, it colors the masa and sauce of Christmas tamales colorados and many chicken and pork stews.
Most home cooks buy it as a paste, sold in small blocks at every market.
Vegetables and Greens
7. Güisquil and Ayote
Güisquil is Guatemala’s name for chayote, the pale green squash with a crisp, mild flesh. It’s cooked right in the sauce of pepián and in beef soups like caldo de res.
Ayote is a big winter squash. It goes into soups, and during Lent and around Day of the Dead it’s cooked in panela syrup with cinnamon to make ayote en dulce. The seeds, of course, become pepitoria.
8. Chipilín and Hierba Mora
Chipilín is a small-leafed green with a flavor somewhere between spinach and fresh beans. It’s folded into the masa of tamalitos de chipilín and cooked in soups.
Hierba mora, black nightshade, is boiled like spinach and eaten with eggs or in broth. Both are sold in bundles at every market, and neither is easy to find outside Central America. Frozen chipilín is sometimes stocked at Central American grocers.
Sweet Things
9. Plátano
Ripe plantains are fried and served with beans and crema at breakfast. They’re also mashed, filled with sweetened black beans and chocolate, and fried into rellenitos, one of the country’s best-loved desserts.
Mole de plátano goes further, cooking fried plantain in a sauce of chocolate, chile, pepitoria and sesame.
10. Cacao
The Maya drank cacao for centuries before Europeans ever tasted chocolate, and they used the beans as money. In Guatemala, cacao is still ground with sugar and cinnamon into rough tablets for hot chocolate.
The same chocolate goes into rellenitos, mole de plátano and the Holy Week sweets sold in Antigua.
Dairy and Coffee
11. Queso and Crema
Guatemalan dairy is fresh and simple. Queso fresco is soft and crumbly, queso seco is aged and salty, and crema is thick, slightly sour cream.
All three are part of breakfast, and crumbled queso seco tops enchiladas, beans and tostadas. For more on these cheeses, see our guide to queso fresco.
12. Café
Guatemala is one of the world’s great coffee origins. Beans grow on the slopes of volcanoes around Antigua, Lake Atitlán and the highlands of Huehuetenango, and each region has its own flavor.
At home, coffee is usually brewed weak and sweet and drunk with a piece of sweet bread. See our guide to Latin American coffees for more.
Where to Buy Guatemalan Ingredients
Much of this list is easy to find. Latin groceries carry masa harina, black beans, tomatillos, chayote, plantains, achiote paste, queso fresco and crema.
Online, look for chile guaque, chile cobanero, pepitoria and Guatemalan Antigua coffee.
Chipilín and hierba mora are the hardest to find. Try a Central American grocery, or use spinach in their place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most important ingredient in Guatemalan food?
Corn. Tortillas are eaten at almost every meal, and corn masa is the base of tamales, chuchitos and atol.
Is Guatemalan food spicy?
Not usually. Most dishes use mild dried chiles for color and depth. Chile cobanero and fresh hot sauces add heat on the side.
What is a recado?
A thick sauce made from toasted, ground seeds, chiles and tomatoes. It’s the base of stews like pepián, jocón and kak’ik.
What is miltomate?
The Guatemalan name for the tomatillo. It gives jocón its green color and tangy flavor.
What is chipilín?
A leafy green herb cooked into tamales and soups in Guatemala and southern Mexico.
What Else Is Always There
A few more things live in a Guatemalan kitchen. There’s rice, cooked with vegetables, eggs, cilantro, onion, garlic, sesame seed, cinnamon and panela for sweetening drinks.
Once your pantry is stocked, cook your way through our guide to traditional Guatemalan food, see what’s served on Guatemalan holidays or browse everything we’ve written about Guatemalan food. To compare pantries, see our guides to Mexican ingredients, Salvadoran ingredients and Honduran ingredients, or explore ingredients by country.
More Guatemalan Foods
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Jorge Garcia is the founder of AmigoFoods, where he has spent over 20 years helping readers discover authentic Latin American and Spanish cuisine. Raised in a Cuban-American household, Jorge learned to cook at the hands of his mother and grandmother, carrying forward generations of family recipes. That heritage, backed by his family’s four-generation history in the Latin food industry, inspired him to launch AmigoFoods in 2003. With more than 1,000 published articles on recipes, ingredients, and food culture, Jorge’s mission is simple: make authentic Latin cooking approachable for home cooks everywhere while honoring the traditions behind every dish.