Welcome foodies! Well here is another one of my guides to eating your way through your travels. Argentina is a meat lover dream and when I say I’ve had some of the best steaks I’ve tried I'm not kidding. After doing a ton of research and asking around I made a huge list of everything I needed to try! And oh did I eat! After all of that here is the list of my absolute favorite Argentinian staple dishes you HAVE to try.
Let's first talk about daily eating schedule.
Desayuno (Breakfast)
Usually eaten 8-9am, Argentinian breakfasts are usually centered around coffee, mate and a quick sweet treat. Coffees are pretty standard, flat whites, espresso with water, cafe con leche and the occasional cappuccino. The main drink of choice is a mate. Also most breakfasts are served with a tiny orange juice or other types of juices. The main staples are ham and cheese toasties, Medislunas (honey glazed croissants), pastries alone or with dulce de leche (different from caramel sauce) or nutella.
Almuerzo (Lunch)
The largest meal of the day eaten from 12-2 and they take their time eating as it is a very social occasion to gather and cook asados (meats) and tons of different sides and sharable dishes.
Merienda (snack?)
This is a common snack time that consists of coffee/mate, small toasties, facturas/tartas (sweet pastries), medialunas (usually croissants drizzled in honey)), cookies or cakes between lunch and dinner. Lunch is the largest meal of the day for Argentinians so they typically have massive lunches and restaurants are open mainly for this time. After, they close for a restful afternoon and people don’t typically eat again until 9:30-10pm. Merienda is eaten if one gets hungry between the closing of lunch and the reopening of dinner.
Cena (dinner)
Eaten around 9:30-11 this is another opportunity for a good asada but usually it is a time for lighter options like empanadas, sandwiches and of course drinks.
Foods
Asado (Argentinian BBQ)
In Argentina, an asado (barbecue) is an event. People gather together and throw as much meat on the grill as possible. Asado refers to the cook and the seasoning of different meat platters along with the gathering of people to eat it. Parillas are steakhouses that serve asados, or they are the grill it is cooked on. So you can eat asado at a Parilla or can have an asado and cook the meat on your parilla. The cook is usually rare, rendered and juicy. These platters are shared amongst the table for everyone to enjoy and contain as much meat as possible.
Cooking the Meat:
There are three ways to cook the meat: gaucho (slow cooked with slow burning firewood without chemicals), and parilla (grilled over a parrillada, this is most restaurant style asados).
Temps:
Vuelta y Vuelta: Blue rare
1min sear on each side. 100% red center (10-29°C or 50-85°F)
Muy Jugoso Very rare
2.5min sear on each side. 75% red center (30-51°C or 86-124°F)
Jugoso Rare
3.5min sear on both sides. 50% red center (53-63°C or 135-145°F)
Al Punto Medium
4min sear on both sides. 25% red center (63-68°C or 145-155°F)
Cocido Cooked (done)
5min sear on both sides. 25% Pink center (72-77°C or 162-170 °F)
Bien Cocido Well cooked (done)
6 min sear on both sides. Brown (77+°C or 170+ °F)
Now I know what you're thinking, this kind of cook is a culinary tragedy. Argentinians are known for cooking their meat like this and I saw it a few times when cooking thin fried meat.
Meat Platters:
An appitizer asado consists of seasoned flame grilled meats of chorizo (sausage), morcilla (blood sausage), chinchulin, molleja, and riñón offal, gizzard and kidney).
Drinks
For dinner the most common cuts of meat you will find in Argentinian adados are Asado (not to be confused with the style of seasoning and cook we are talking about) which is short Ribs, roast prime rib, asado de tira which is chuck ribs, cross cut, Vacio (Flank, but with a layer of fat which adds flavor when cooked, Bife de Chorizo (Sirloin Steak, Argentina’s most popular cut, and Lomo (Tenderloin/filet mignon) This is the most expensive cut and has very little fat. There are many others but these are the most common.
Sauces for the meat
An asado is not complete without a good sauce. These sauces were originally used to preserve meats but now provide acids that cut through the salty heavy nature of the meat and help the digestion process by activating stomach enzymes. Here are the classic sauces used but there are plenty more offered that you can choose from with your meat.
Chimichurri:
Ingredients: olive oil, vinegar, parsley, oregano, garlic and ají molido (red pepper flakes) or fresh chopped chili pepper.
They say it is “picante” or spicy but it is actually very mild. Adding a depth of flavor to meat and bringing out the natural flavors to help render the fats with in makes the asado so famous.
Salsa criolla:
onion, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, oil and vinegar or lemon juice.
Empanada
A fried fast food classic that is eaten all over for a quick bite, gathering snack, or for almost anything else, ss it is a fried hand held pastry full of deliciousness. Argentinian empanadas are made as a turnover with a flour, oil, eggs, salt and pepper dough stuffed with beef, chicken, ham and cheese, sweet corn or swiss chard and cheese. You can bake them or fry them.
Popular stuffings:
Carne suave: minced meat
Carne picante: Spicy Meat
Carne cortado: Steak chunks
Champignon con queso y jerez: Mushrooms, cheese and sherry
Pollo: Chicken (Like the meat empanada, contains onion, egg, etc)
Atún: Tuna (some varieties are a tad spicy, others not)
Humita: Sweetcorn cream
Choclo y queso: Corn and Cheese
Quatro Quesos: Four Cheeses
Calabreza: Cheese and hot salami
Verdura: Spinach or chard (usually in a Béchamel-like white sauce)
Pizza
Argentina has a strong Italian (mainly Genoa) background believe it or not and it shows in their habits of eating pizza any time of the day. In most major cities, you will find a pizza place every couple of meters. The most common are the mozz deep dish (mozzarella, olive oil, tomato and basil), fugazza (cheesy crust with caramelized onions and red peppers), and flatbreads with oils and olive spreads. Argentina is known for having a huge variety of all types of pizzas and attempting to BBQ them.
Olive Oils/Balsamic Vinegars
There are a number of olive groves and vineyards in Argentina, making them have some of the widest varieties of olive oils and balsamic vinegars. Differents oils and vinagars are infused with different flavors through the creation process. They carefully pair different flavors of their oils and vinegars to match their dishes and it makes a huge difference when you taste a steak versus a salad with a vinaigrette.
Other foods
There are a few other foods that aren’t as exciting but you will see all over Argentina and are quite popular; milanesas (breaded meat patties with various toppings), tartas (like a quiche), locro and guiso de lentejas (popular veggie stews)
Desserts
Argentinians are known for having a sweet tooth too. As they often serve sweets with their meals or snacks. Here are some of my absolute favorite classics
Dulce de Leche
Not to be confused with a caramel sauce (because that is a sin) this sweet caramelized milk, and is used as additions or fillings to furious pastries, alfajores (cookies) and cakes.
Drinks
Hot Drinks:
Yerba Mate
Matte is the second most consumed drink in Argentina after water. Mate is an evergreen holly shrub native to Argentina, Paraguay and parts of Brazil. Even though it is thought of by outsiders as a tea, technically it is not. Mate is consumed in a very special way that is key to the experience, because that what it really is, and experience.
In a lot of places you can order “mate” on a menu but its not the classic mate because mate drinking is a whole experience. You will see people carrying a thermos around full of hot water with a bombilla which is a bulbous bowl made of wood, bamboo or ceramic, a bag of Yerba Mate and you must drink it with a metal or bamboo straw with a pinched end.
How to Drink
Fill bombilla ⅔ with mate leaves
Mix dry leaves around bringing the powdered bits up
Tilt bombilla and pour luke warm water in just to wet the mate but don’t saturate it.
Let it sit, and leaves expand. They will be sticking together
Pour hot water in again not saturating it and let it settle towards the bottom. Leaves should be sticky and not saturated in water.
Tilt again and make a hole with your straw to clear a path in the mate leaves to drink so as to not sip up any leaves.
Traditionally the server (cebrador) will drink first, pass around the circle and keep going until people are done.
Mate is a drink people consume in the morning, for a work break, with friends, after work, and social events. People gather together to drink mate, or offer it when someone visits, it's a drink that brings people together.
Submarino: hot chocolate
Wine
Malbec (Red wine)
The wine that Argentina is famous for. With over 3,000 wineries and the perfect climate for growing grapes, you haven't had a good malbec until you’ve tried one in Argentina.
Torrontes (white wine)
A true outlier of white wines with its floral and fruity tastes. Grown high in the mountains it is often used as a dessert wine.
Clericó: Torrontes wine, fresh fruit, sugar and soda water
Spirits
Fernet
Argentina has been the number one consumer for years. this spirit is VERY bitter. So it is often pair with something sweet.
Fernandito: (Coke and fernet) is the most common drink that everyone drinks
Vermouth
A fortified wine originally brought over by the Italians. Bitter and dry then infused with herbs and sweetened
Classic Drink: ice, soda water and a slice of orange
Aperitifs
This drink is very similar to an aperol, bitter with orange notes and is often mixed with agua con gas (sparkling water) sprite, Champagne or other things to break through the heavy bitterness and bring out the fruity nature of the drink.
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Greer Ransom | Travel Advisor
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