Puerto Rican Sofrito Recipe (Recaito)

This delicious Puerto Rican sofrito recipe also known as “Recaito” is going to change your life! Sofrito is a sauce made of herbs, onions, garlic and peppers. It is so flavorful and is used in many Latin American dishes. You’ll wonder how you ever cooked without it!

Is this an authentic Puerto Rican sofrito recipe?

Although similar, this is not an authentic Puerto Rican sofrito. Authentic sofrito is made with cubanelle peppers, ahi dulce peppers and culantro. However, it can be difficult to find those ingredients in the states.

Thankfully, the recipe I’m sharing today is just as good and it uses ingredients that are available in all grocery stores.

What is the purpose of sofrito?

The purpose of sofrito is to add flavor. It’s used in many recipes such as Puerto Rican stewed beans, Puerto Rican beef stew and beef soup.

What is the difference between sofrito and salsa?

Sofrito is sauce that is used as a flavoring base. It isn’t eaten raw. It’s always cooked first before adding other ingredients. It’s a common flavoring base used not only in Puerto Rican cooking but also Dominican cooking.

Salsa is a big part of Mexican cuisine. Salsa is often made with fresh ingredients and eaten raw with tortilla chips or spooned over foods such as taquitos or quesadillas. Salsa can be used to stew meats such beef ribs in green salsa.

Sofrito ingredients

• bell peppers (one of each color)
• Italian parsley
• cilantro
• white onion
• garlic

How to Make it

Make sure to rinse the cilantro, parsley and peppers.

Then chop up all the ingredients except for the garlic.

Just peel the garlic cloves.

Now transfer the ingredients to a blender and blend.

You can add a very little bit of water if necessary to start the blending process.

You can blend the sofrito in two batches if your blender isn’t big enough.

How to store

After blending, I like to transfer the sofrito to freezer safe zip loc bags.

I freeze mine so it lasts longer. If stored in the refrigerator it will stay good for about 3 days.

I really like having homemade frozen sofrito in the freezer that way I don’t have to go through all the work of chopping and blending the ingredients.

It’s a great idea to freeze the sofrito in small portions that way you don’t end up defrosting more than you need for a recipe.

Homemade Puerto Rican Sofrito Recipe

You’re going to love homemade sofrito. It’s so much better than storebought. Just a small amount gives amazing flavor! Give it a try and let me know what you think. If you enjoyed this recipe please give it a rating below.