The baleada is the most famous Honduran dish and street food staple. I’ll show you the origins of this delicacy as well as how to make baleadas at home.
Keep reading to join me in this delicious lesson of cuisine and history!
A short history of Baleada
We trace back the origins of the baleada to La Ceiba, Honduras. From that Caribbean coast city, the Standard Fruit Co. sent banana shipments to the southern US. A small train connected La Ceiba with the banana plantations.
Standard Fruit Co. was an American company, and the Vaccaro brothers, from Sicily, founded it. Like many Italians, they brought their cuisine and some of its ingredients to La Ceiba.
Among them, wheat flour is essential for making several Italian recipes. As this ingredient became more and more affordable, it started to gain popularity. In the past, corn flour was more popular and people needed to process raw corn in their kitchens to make tortillas. For this reason, wheat flour became more convenient.
In the 1960s, a young single mom started her street-food stall close to the train station. There, she popularized a dish her mom made for her when she was a little girl. Her name was “Doña Tere”, and many people in Honduras credit her from being the first one to popularize the baleadas.
In its first iterations, the dish was simple: a wheat flour tortilla cooked on a comal or skillet, filled with beans, cheese, and Honduran sour cream.
Quickly, travelers and young party-goers made baleadas their favorite thing to eat at many different times of the day.
Half a century later, the baleada has become the Honduran cuisine flagship, and people are able to consume it in many different countries.
There is an urban legend that tells the story of a young woman who was cooking at her food stall when she got shot. Curiously, baleada can be translated as “a woman who got shot.” After she recovered, neighbors would nickname her and her business “baleada.” The popularity of this incident contributed to having the dish called by that name as well.
Yet, when I talked with Doña Tere, the self-proclaimed “creator” of the baleadas, she debunked this myth.
According to Doña Tere, youngsters asked her about the name of the baleada decades ago. Using a metaphor, she explained why she called it “baleada”, saying “the beans are the bullets, the grated cheese is the powder, and the tortilla is the cartridge,” explained Doña Tere.
Both of these two versions are backed by people’s word of mouth throughout different cities in Honduras. What version do you think is true?
Authentic Baleada | Original Recipe
Ingredients
Tortillas
- ¼ cup of lard
- 1 egg
- 3 cups of flour
- 2½ tsps of baking soda
- Warm water
Fillings for baleada sencilla (original recipe)
- 1 lb refried beans
- Honduran queso seco (dry, crumbly cheese). If you can't find it, cotija cheese is a good alternative
- Honduran sour cream
Instructions
- In a bowl, mix the tortilla ingredients: flour, warm water, baking soda, one egg, lard, and salt.
- Use your hands until you get a soft, sticky, uniform dough. Let it rest for 15 to 20 minutes.
- After resting, the dough will be easier to manipulate. Make several dough balls and let them rest for 15 to 20 minutes more.
- Stretch the dough using a rolling spin, aiming for a round tortilla. True experts can make a final touch with their hands, but it requires some practice.
- Place the round tortilla to cook on a hot pan for 2 minutes or until brown. Try to stack tortillas one over the other. This will let them steam each other and stay soft and warm for a longer time.
- To fill the tortillas spread the beans, top with grated cheese and Honduran sour cream. Fold the tortilla, and enjoy a classic baleada!
Video
Notes
If you liked this baleada recipe, you might like some of my other recipes too.
And remember, if you try this recipe and want to share your pictures, tag me @lacooquette on Instagram. I’d love to share your pictures on my IG stories.
This is a great recipe… except did you mean to say 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda? I wasn’t sure while I was making them so I used Tablespoons and it was definitely a mistake. I will definitely use this recipe again but please fix your recipe asap so other people don’t make the mistake!
TBSP = Tablespoon
TSP = Teaspoon
oh my goodness – you are right! I hadn’t noticed that, sorry. I had an editor upload my recipe and he must’ve mistaken Tbsp for tsp. I hope you weren’t discouraged to try baleadas again, hugs!
Not at all! They are delicious and this has been my favorite recipe I’ve found (besides the mishap). A lot of other recipe’s are too chewy, too hard, too dough-y. These are soft and easy!!
so happy to hear this!! 🙂 have a jolly and delicious 2023!
Fire!
Why are you using lard and egg in a tortilla? 🤮
Flour, water, olive oil, salt and baking powder… That is how you make a tortilla. Significantly cheaper, easier and tastes better.
Also stores longer, since there is no dairy.
You can work in garlic, or use a garlic oil and infuse the tortillas with an unforgettable flavour.
Lard should never find its way into your kitchen, for any reason, whatsoever.
Hi Luke! I appreciate your suggestion but there are some people who prefer to add these ingredients specifically to help with the consistency and great taste of the Honduran baleada. Some recipes and ingredients are just traditional and although we do gotta watch how much we eat of them, I don’t believe lard should be banned from being used in certain traditional dishes. You CAN make baleadas without it, they just don’t taste or feel the same way! 🙂
Because these are Baleadas not tortillas 😂🤣.