Taste Peru
Perú
Ceviche is the headline, but Peruvian cooking also means potatoes in every colour, ají chillies, quinoa, Japanese-Peruvian Nikkei, Chinese-Peruvian chifa, and highland stews. The coast cooks with citrus and chilli; the Andes with freeze-dried potato and meat; the Amazon with jungle produce most of the world still doesn't know.
7 recipes · 1 cuisine
Essential dishes
Ceviche
Ceviche
Peruvian lime-cured fish with chilli, red onion and coriander. Your fishmonger matters more than your knife skills.
40 minMedium🌶️🌶️
Lomo saltado
Lomo saltado
A Peruvian-Chinese stir-fry: beef, onion, tomato, soy and fries — on the same plate as rice.
40 minMedium🌶️
Ají de gallina
Ají de gallina
Shredded chicken in a bread-thickened yellow chilli sauce — Lima comfort that looks rich and is.
1 hrMedium🌶️🌶️
Causa limeña
Causa limeña
A cold yellow potato terrine with lime and chilli, layered with chicken or tuna — Lima's starter that is not mashed potatoes.
1 hr 55 minMedium🌶️
Anticuchos
Anticuchos
Grilled skewers in ají and vinegar — traditionally heart, honestly also steak if that is what you will eat.
2 hr 30 minEasy🌶️🌶️
Papa a la Huancaína
Papa a la Huancaína
Boiled potatoes under a cold ají-and-cheese sauce — a yellow plate from the highlands that became a national starter.
40 minEasy🌶️🌶️
Tacu tacu
Tacu tacu
Rice and beans mashed and fried into a crisp cake — Afro-Peruvian leftovers that became a plate.
25 minEasy🌶️
Regional cuisines
Think you know Peru food?
7 quiz dishes. Optional — Passport stamps still come from cooking.
Take the Peru food quizFood history
Pre-Columbian agriculture (potato, chilli, maize, tomato relatives) met Spanish, African, Japanese and Chinese migrations. Ceviche's acid-cooked fish is older than the Republic; the current lime-and-onion style is more recent. Lima's restaurant boom did not invent Peruvian food — it amplified kitchens that were already there.
Common ingredients
Techniques
- acid curing
- aji blending
- potato cooking
- stir-fry chifa
- grilling anticucho