Sofrito - A Staple of Caribbean Cooking

Sofrito is essential to Puerto Rican cooking. Essentially, it's a combination of different herbs and vegetables such as onions, garlic, cilantro and peppers and is the base for almost all Caribbean dishes. It can be used in rice, soup, beans and adds flavor to pretty much anything you can think of!

Growing up my entire family would get together once a month to make a large batch of sofrito so everyone could take some home. Everyone would arrive with their empty jars of mayonnaise to take their sofrito. Making sofrito involves a bit of labor, particularly with all the peeling, chopping and mixing.

Nowadays, I don't use mayonnaise jars, but ice trays instead. I've found that using ice trays is easier for freezing and storage. Also, each cube measures about a tablespoon, making it easier for measuring, as well. Once frozen, sofrito can keep for months. 

The aroma that sofrito releases while cooking is wonderful. You can smell all the ingredients as it simmers and the food you cook with the sofrito will be tasty and unique in favor. 

Here is my friend Maria Medina's recipe, which is the recipe I follow. 

Maria Medina's Homemade Sofrito

2 envelopes of Sazon Goya

1/2 cup of cooking oil

2 tablespoons of Adobo Goya

2 large white onions

2-3 heads of garlic (if already peeled 1 pk)

1 bunch of cilantro

2 bunchs of culantro*

1 green bell pepper

1 red bell pepper

1 yellow bell pepper

1 package of ajies dulces (tiny sweet peppers with a hint of heat)*

*The culantro and ajies dulces may be difficult to find but the culantro can be substituted with cilantro and the ajies dules can be substituted with one green pepper and one red pepper.

Once you have all the ingredients cleaned and peeled, chopped the onions, peppers, culantro and cilantro into smaller pieces. Start blending them in a food processor or blender.  Start by adding a little of each ingredient at a time so that way each batch made has the same ingredients in it. 

Enjoy!