Baleadas are one of the most iconic Honduran street foods. They are full of flavor, easy to make, and highly customizable.
What are baleadas made of?
Baleadas are warm flour tortillas filled with creamy bean paste cheese and egg. That is the basic and traditional recipe of baleadas. Only those three ingredients a filling.
They are usually served as a fulfilling breakfast but sometimes they can be used as dinner as well.
They may be simple and humble but baleadas are well-loved in Honduras.
Are baleadas tacos?
No, they both use tortillas as a base but there are differences in size and ingredients. Baleadas use the same type of tortillas as burritos and quesadillas. They are big — 10 inches — and made of wheat.
Tacos use smaller tortillas — 8 inches— usually made of corn or a mixture of corn with wheat.
How to make the red bean paste?
This is the heart of baleadas. As I mentioned before, you can add a variety of ingredients to make a baleada that is perfect for your taste. But the ingredient that you can’t miss from your baleadas is the red bean paste — imagine how sad it is to have a quesadilla without the cheese.
So, this paste is extremely easy to make. The procedure is similar to my refried black beans recipe
To start, heat a pan and add 2 tbsp of vegetable oil. Then dice a small onion and mince two garlic cloves. Add the garlic and the glove into the pan and make a simple “sofrito”.
When the onion is almost transparent — about 2 minutes over medium heat—, add the drained and cooked red beans. Cook for a couple of minutes and add salt and pepper to taste.
Blend the beans until you get a thick paste. Super simple, yet super delicious.
Now it’s time to assemble the baleadas.
First, warm up the tortillas — you can use the oven of a cast-iron plancha griddle — then fill with the red bean paste, cheese, scrambled eggs, and avocado for extra creaminess.
What else can you add?
The sky’s the limit. You can get as creative as you want with this recipe. But, here I give you a list of my favorite add-ons
- Fried sweet plantains
- Shredded Chicken
- Shredded meat
- Avocado
- Eggs
- Shredded white cheese
- Soft cheese (like mozzarella)
- Cilantro garlic sauce
