Puerto Rican Sofrito

My trip to Puerto Rico changed the way I cooked in my house. I am talking about the Puerto Rican sofrito. I came by this amazing marinade on my trip to Puerto Rico one summer. All over Puerto Rico the food is good and savory. When I came to one street vendor, I just had to ask what their secret was. I was told it was sofrito.

Sofrito is a mix of vegetables that gets used to marinate food in Hispanic cultures. Inside of a typical sofrito, there are green peppers, red peppers, garlic cloves, celery, cilantro and red onions. There are options to season the mix too but that is up to you. After gathering all the ingredients, they are blended and stored in a container for everyday use.

When I say sofrito is used for pretty much everything, I mean that. Sofrito is used in meat, beans and even rice sometimes. Sofrito was a game changer in my household. After learning the secret to such savory meals, I had to incorporate them in my food. I keep a big tub of it in my fridge for everyday cooking. Whenever I run out of it, I just go to the grocery store and buy the veggies I need to make it again.

Sofrito is so easy and simple but makes the world of difference in the taste of food. It even adds a sort of sauce factor to sautéed meat.

The way I made sofrito at home is easy. First I go to the grocery store and buy a sleeve of garlic. I also get a bag of red onions, celery sticks, cilantro and red and green peppers. When I get home I soak all my veggies in vinegar to make sure they are clean. Once they are clean I get my knife out and prepare to blend.

The first thing I do, is cut and blend the peppers. I’ve done this recipe a few times to find the easiest way to blend everything. The reason I do the peppers first is because they have a lot of water in them. I don’t like adding too much water to the blender because it tends to separate at the end. Doing the peppers first gives me a nice watery blend to work with.

After the peppers, I peel the garlic. Peeling all the cloves of garlic is by far the most time consuming part of this mixture. There is about 4-5 of them; depending on how much garlic you want in it. The garlic has to be peeled and individually crushed and then added into the blender. Once the garlic is added in I blend the pepper and garlic together. I keep a big mixing bowl on the side because at this point the blender is almost full but we have a lot more ingredients to go. The mixing bowl on the side is to put most of what I just mixed on the side in order to fit the next ingredient.

Once I’ve dumped most of the pepper and garlic mixture into the bowl, I’m left with a little over an inch of the mixture left in the blender. Next, I add the celery. Celery is also a vegetable full of water, so it blends easy without adding any extra water. The mix left at the bottom and the celery mix well together. I put one stick of celery in at a time until the whole celery bunch is gone.

Next, is the dreaded onion. I hate cutting onions because my eyes get tore up of from the tears. But onions are so savory and good. The pain is worth the flavor. I cut one onion at a time and add it to the blender and mix the celery mix with the onions. I do this until all my onions are gone. At this point, the blender is about full again, so I dump most of what’s in the blender into the mixing bowl. Then I take a spoon and mix everything in the mixing bowl together.

Last but not least, is the cilantro. I take the bunch of cilantro and put it in the blender with the last of the mixture. I blend it until it’s a chunky consistency because we’re not going for a super blended smoothie consistency. You want it to look like a well-blended salsa almost. Once that blending is done, I add what’s left in the blender into the mixing bowl with everything else. I take my spoon and mix everything up until it looks nice and evenly distributed.

Now that the whole mixture is mixed up in the bowl, I grab a container to store. I use a container that has a screw off lid. With a screw off lid it’s easy to use whenever I need it to cook. Once the sofrito mix is in it’s container, I store it in the fridge. There might be some left over depending on how big your container to store it is. With my extra sofrito, I just put it in a plastic baggie and freeze in the freezer. That way it’ll still be good to use once the sofrito in the fridge runs out.

Well there you have it, the new secret to my food. I use it all the time to cook now. It makes my food extra savory. Sofrito is also an easy way to add veggies to food without noticing, for those picky eaters out there. Give this sofrito recipe a try and I promise it’ll change the way you cook.