Hispanic Heritage · Honduras

La Costa Norte

La Ceiba · San Pedro Sula · El Progreso · Choloma · Villanueva · Tela

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Baleadas

Descubre

A baleada begins with a warm flour tortilla folded around beans, cream, and cheese. Associated with Honduras’s north coast and enjoyed widely, it makes an approachable first stop in the country’s varied cooking.

La Gente

The tortilla is part of the experience: soft enough to fold, sturdy enough to hold the filling. Season the beans, warm each tortilla, and assemble just before eating. Eggs or avocado can turn the simple combination into a fuller meal.

Sabor

The north coast cooks in coconut, red beans, and the cream and cheese of the Honduran dairy. Garlic and cumin in the beans, culantro and achiote in the soups, and the small heat of a chile on the side. It is a mild, rich, generous kitchen, and the flour tortilla is its most surprising fact.

Spice DNA · Sweet low · Herb medium · Smoke low · Heat low · Acid low

Seasonings to explore

Minced Garlic in Olive Oil. In the refried beans. Adds a savory garlic base.
Cumin, ground. In the beans, lightly. Some houses do, some do not.
Onion Powder. In the beans with the fresh onion.
Black Pepper, ground. In the beans and the egg.
Cilantro flakes. For the sopa de caracol on the day there is no culantro.
Sazón with Coriander and Annatto. For the achiote in the caracol broth.

From your market: red beans (the small Honduran red, or any small red bean), flour, lard or shortening, baking powder, queso seco or a dry crumbly cheese (cotija stands in), mantequilla rala or crema, eggs, and avocado. Badia does not sell the mantequilla rala. Crema is the compromise every catracho has made.

Cocina

Baleadas

Flour tortilla, refried red beans, queso seco, mantequilla. Hand-stretched. La Ceiba's breakfast, and everyone else's.

Makes 8

The tortillas

3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
⅓ cup lard or shortening
1 cup warm water, about

The beans

2 cups cooked small red beans, with ½ cup of their liquid
3 tbsp oil or lard
½ onion, minced
1 tbsp Badia Minced Garlic in Olive Oil, or 3 garlic cloves minced
½ tsp Badia Onion Powder
½ tsp Badia Cumin, ground, optional
¼ tsp Badia Black Pepper, ground
Salt

To fill

1 cup queso seco or cotija, crumbled
Mantequilla rala or crema
Scrambled eggs, avocado, for the especial

The dough. Mix flour, salt, and baking powder. Rub in the fat until it looks like sand. Add warm water a little at a time until it comes together into a soft dough. Knead 5 minutes. Divide into 8 balls, cover, and rest 20 minutes.
The beans. Warm the oil. Cook the onion with the garlic and onion powder until soft. Add the beans and their liquid, the cumin if using, and the pepper. Mash with the back of a spoon as they cook, 8 to 10 minutes, until thick and spreadable. Salt.
Stretch. Flatten a ball with your hands, then stretch it from the edges, turning, until it is about 8 inches across and a little thicker than a Mexican flour tortilla. La Ceiba does this in the air. A rolling pin is forgiven.
Cook. On a hot dry comal or skillet, 1 to 2 minutes a side, until it puffs and blisters with brown spots.
Build. Spread beans across half. Cheese over. A drizzle of mantequilla. Egg and avocado if it is an especial. Fold.
Eat hot, standing, with coffee or a horchata, and then another one. Honduras has celebrated a day for this since 2018, the third Saturday of June. Any other day is also fine.

Pueblos de la Costa Norte

La Ceiba · San Pedro Sula · El Progreso · Choloma · Villanueva · Tela · Puerto Cortés · Omoa · Trujillo · Sambo Creek · Corozal · Roatán · Utila · Guanaja · La Lima · Santa Rita