Recipes
Peruvian recipes to make at home
From chicha morada to seco, from ceviche to tacu tacu: 26 recipes to make the trip last at home, with the story of the dish, the right techniques and ingredients that are easy to find in Europe.
List of recipes
More filters: difficulty, technique, diet
The “vegetarian” and “free from…” filters are based on the list of ingredients and the allergens identified in our home versions (present or possible). They say nothing about dishes served in restaurants, nor about possible traces in the products you buy: always read the labels.
- Main course · Lima and criolla cooking
Ají de gallina with chicken
Shredded poultry in a sauce of yellow chilli, soaked bread, milk, pecans and parmesan: the chicken recipe for four.
Serves 4 · About 1 hr 15 min, 45 minutes with chicken that is already cooked (estimate) · intermediate
- Main course · Chifa
Arroz chaufa
The fried rice of Lima’s chifas, with chicken, omelette, spring onion, ginger (kion) and soy sauce (sillao), made with well-chilled day-old rice.
Serves 4 · 35 minutes with rice that is already cooked and cold (estimate) · easy
- Dessert · Lima and criolla cooking
Arroz con leche
Short-grain rice cooked with cinnamon, cloves and orange zest, then in sweetened milk until it is a cream that still flows. On its own or with mazamorra.
About 900 g: 6 small bowls or 4 large ones · About 1 hour, served lukewarm (estimate) · easy · vegetarian
- Main course · Lima and criolla cooking
Arroz con pollo with coriander
Green rice with coriander and ají amarillo, cooked in the juices of a chicken simmered with carrot, peas and red pepper, all in one casserole.
Serves 4 · About 1 hr 15 min (estimate) · intermediate
- Main course · Lima and criolla cooking
Beef heart anticuchos
Beef heart skewers marinated in ají panca, vinegar, garlic and cumin, grilled while basting, after two hours of marinating.
Serves 4 (about 12 skewers) · About 3 hours, including 2 hours of marinating (estimate) · intermediate
- Main course · North coast, Lima and criolla cooking
Beef seco with coriander
Beef slow-cooked in a green sauce of coriander and ají amarillo, with dark beer, served with rice and beans.
Serves 4 · About 2 hr 30 min (estimate) · intermediate
- Main course · Ica
Carapulcra, a stew of pork and papa seca
Papa seca toasted and then slow-cooked with pork, ají panca, cinnamon and peanuts: the stew of Chincha and Cañete.
Serves 4 · 1 hr 45 min on the day itself, after soaking overnight (estimate) · intermediate
- Starter or salad · Lima and criolla cooking
Causa with chicken and avocado
A cold mash of yellow potatoes with lime and ají amarillo, layered with chicken in mayonnaise and avocado. Serves four.
Serves 4 (an 18 cm mould or 4 rings of 8 cm) · About 2 hr 30 min, including 1 hr 30 min of cooling (estimate) · easy
- Drink · Lima and criolla cooking
Chicha morada
Peru’s purple soft drink: purple corn infused with pineapple, apple, cinnamon and cloves, sweetened and sharpened with lime. Ready to drink or as a concentrate.
About 2 litres ready to drink, or 1 litre of concentrate to dilute · 1 hr 15 min of preparation, then the cooling (estimate) · easy · vegetarian
- Main course · Amazon
Chicken juane: a homemade recipe
The dish of the San Juan festival in the Amazon: seasoned rice bound with egg, chicken, hard-boiled egg and olive, sealed in a leaf and steamed. Makes four.
Serves 4 (4 juanes of about 350 g) · About 2 hours (estimate) · tricky
- Main course · Amazon
Fish in leaves, inspired by patarashca
Fish fillets seasoned with turmeric, garlic and mild chilli, with onion, tomato and coriander, baked in the oven in a banana-leaf parcel.
Serves 4 · About 1 hour (estimate) · easy
- Main course · Lima and criolla cooking, Chifa
Lomo saltado
Beef stir-fried over a high heat with red onion, tomato, ají amarillo, soy sauce and vinegar, served with chips and rice. Serves four, step by step.
Serves 4 · About 50 minutes (estimate) · intermediate
- Dessert · Lima and criolla cooking
Mazamorra morada
Purple corn pudding with fresh and dried fruit, thickened with starch and scented with cinnamon. Six small portions, from an unsweetened purple corn decoction.
Makes 6 small portions · 30 minutes with the decoction ready, 1 hr 30 min starting from the corn (estimate) · easy · vegetarian
- Starter or salad · Arequipa
Ocopa with huacatay
Potatoes coated in a sauce from Arequipa: toasted mirasol and amarillo chillies, peanuts, fresh cheese, crackers and huacatay, with a starting dose of the herb.
Serves 4 as a starter · About 40 minutes (estimate) · easy · vegetarian
- Main course · Andes
Oven-roasted cuy
The roast cuy of the Cusco area, adapted for the oven: a garlic, ají panca and cumin marinade, cooked with a thermometer, using a cuy sold as food.
One whole cuy, for 1 to 2 people depending on its size · About 3 hr 30 min, marinating included (estimate) · tricky
- Sandwich · Lima and criolla cooking
Pan con chicharrón
Lima’s morning sandwich: pork belly simmered then browned in its own fat, fried sweet potato and salsa criolla in a crusty roll. Four sandwiches.
Makes 4 sandwiches · About 2 hours (estimate) · intermediate
- Starter or salad · Lima and criolla cooking
Papa a la huancaína
Potatoes coated in a cream of fresh cheese, yellow chilli and milk, with hard-boiled egg and olive. Serves four as a starter.
Serves 4 as a starter · About 35 minutes (estimate) · easy · vegetarian
- Starter or salad · Lima and criolla cooking
Peruvian ceviche: recipe and method
Fish sold for eating raw, limes squeezed at the last minute, red onion, chilli and coriander: the ceviche recipe, and a version with cooked fish.
Makes 4 small starter portions · About 45 minutes, side dishes included (estimate) · intermediate
- Dessert · Lima and criolla cooking
Picarones, squash and sweet potato doughnuts
Ring-shaped doughnuts made with squash and sweet potato, risen and then fried, served with a spiced chancaca syrup, with guidance on rising and frying.
About 20 picarones, for 4 to 6 people · About 3 hours (estimate) · tricky · vegetarian
- Main course · Lima and criolla cooking
Roast chicken inspired by pollo a la brasa
A whole chicken marinated overnight in garlic, cumin, ají panca, soy sauce and dark beer, roasted in the oven on a rack, with chips and salad.
Serves 4 (a 1.5 kg chicken) · 1 hr 45 min on the day itself, after marinating (estimate) · easy
- Main course · Arequipa
Rocotos rellenos
Rocotos hollowed out and blanched, stuffed with beef and pork with ají panca, onion, peanuts, olives, raisins and egg, baked with cheese. The pepper stays hot.
Serves 4 (4 rocotos) · About 1 hr 30 min (estimate) · intermediate
- Sauce · Lima and criolla cooking
Salsa criolla
Red onion cut in feathers, lime, chilli and coriander: the garnish for pan con chicharrón, tamales and seco, to be made just before the meal.
Serves 4 as a side · 20 minutes (estimate) · easy · vegetarian
- Starter or salad · Arequipa
Solterito, Arequipa’s salad
Broad beans, corn, fresh cheese, tomato, red onion, olives and a little rocoto, with vinegar and parsley: the meat-free salad of Arequipa’s picanterías.
Serves 4 as a starter, 2 as a light main course · 1 hour with fresh broad beans, 35 minutes with frozen broad beans (estimate) · easy · vegetarian
- Main course · Ica
Sopa seca with chicken
Broken spaghetti cooked in a stock with basil, ají panca, tomato and carrot until it is absorbed, with chicken. To serve with carapulcra.
Serves 4 · About 1 hour (estimate) · intermediate
- Main course · Amazon
Tacacho con cecina
Green plantains roasted, mashed with lard and pieces of crisp pork, shaped into balls and served with smoked pork.
Serves 4 (8 tacacho balls) · About 1 hour (estimate) · intermediate
- Main course · Lima and criolla cooking
Tacu tacu
Day-old rice and yellow beans, seasoned with an ají amarillo aderezo, mashed, shaped and browned in the pan until a crust forms, with a fried egg.
Serves 4 (4 tacu tacus) · 45 minutes with the rice and beans already cooked (estimate) · intermediate · vegetarian
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Homemade recipes, written for Europe
Each recipe starts from reference recipes (PROMPERÚ, culinary encyclopaedias, restaurant menus) and is adapted to the ingredients you can find in Switzerland or France. These are SwissLima recipes that we have not yet cooked ourselves: so you will find no ratings, no reviews and no times presented as measured.
How to read a recipe page
- Times are separated: advance preparation (a marinade, soaking, rice from the day before), active time, cooking or simmering, resting. They are estimates.
- Difficulty (easy, intermediate, tricky) takes the techniques into account: frying, folding leaves, shaping. Picarones, juane and roast cuy are the trickiest.
- Signs of success describe what you should see, smell or feel at each key stage: a sauce that coats the spoon, a purée that rolls into a ball, a crust that lets you turn a cake over.
- Portions: when the yield is reliable, you can go from 2 to 8 portions; only the quantities change, never the times or temperatures. For a whole piece or a yield given as a range, the selector does not appear.
- Substitutions say what a replacement changes in taste or texture.
Finding the ingredients in Switzerland
Ají amarillo, ají panca or huacatay pastes, dried purple corn, papa seca, plantains, banana leaves: these ingredients are found mainly in Latin American, African or Asian grocery shops, and online. To find out what each ingredient looks like and what replacing it changes, see ingredients.
Three safety rules that keep coming up
- The core temperature. The FSVO recommends heating meat, poultry, fish and seafood to at least 70 °C at the core; for poultry, the recipes in this guide use the stricter American threshold: 74 °C (165 °F) at the thickest point. A thermometer is better than going by colour.
- Cooked rice. According to the NHS, it must be cooled within an hour of cooking, kept in the fridge, eaten within 24 hours, reheated only once to 70 °C at the core for 2 minutes. Chaufa and tacu tacu, made with rice from the day before, depend on this rapid cooling.
- Raw and cooked. Separate boards and utensils, and a marinade that has touched raw meat is never used as a raw sauce: do not reuse it for a raw dish (sauce, dressing).
For leftovers, the rule used is that of the British agency: in the fridge within one to two hours of cooking, to be eaten within 48 hours or frozen. Use drinking water, including for drinks, and always read the labels of sauces and chilli pastes.
Sources and dates
5 sources
Prices, opening hours and rules change: every piece of information cited links to its source, with the date it was consulted.
Figures and rules cited
- at least 70 °C at the core: Minimum core temperature for meat, poultry, fish and seafood (general Swiss guideline) (Switzerland) . A food safety guideline, not a culinary doneness criterion: some meats are served more cooked.
Official source: FSVO, Hygiène et aliments (food hygiene: four basic rules, in French) (new tab) · consulted on 3 October 2026 - 74 °C (165 °F) at the thickest point: Minimum core temperature for poultry (chicken, turkey, giblets, stuffing) (United States) . A US threshold, stricter than the FSVO’s general guideline of 70 °C; used for the poultry recipes.
Official source: FoodSafety.gov, safe minimum cooking temperatures (reviewed on 21 November 2024) (new tab) , published on 21 November 2024 · consulted on 3 October 2026 - cooled within an hour of cooking, kept in the fridge, eaten within 24 hours, reheated only once to 70 °C at the core for 2 minutes: Storing cooked rice (United Kingdom)
Official source: NHS, starchy foods and carbohydrates (reviewed on 15 March 2023) (new tab) , published on 15 March 2023 · consulted on 3 October 2026 - do not reuse it for a raw dish (sauce, dressing): A marinade that has held raw meat or fish (Switzerland)
Official source: FSVO, Hygiène et aliments (food hygiene, in French) (new tab) · consulted on 3 October 2026 - in the fridge within one to two hours of cooking, to be eaten within 48 hours or frozen: Cooling and keeping cooked leftovers (United Kingdom) . The same source asks you to thaw food in the fridge and to eat thawed food within 24 hours.
Official source: GOV.UK (Food Standards Agency), cooling, freezing and defrosting food safely (18 December 2017) (new tab) , published on 18 December 2017 · consulted on 3 October 2026
Sources consulted
- FSVO, Hygiene and food (cook, separate, chill; in French) (new tab) (consulted on 3 October 2026)
- NHS, starchy foods: storing and reheating rice (reviewed 15 March 2023) (new tab) (consulted on 3 October 2026)
- FoodSafety.gov, safe minimum internal temperatures (reviewed 21 November 2024) (new tab) (consulted on 3 October 2026)
- GOV.UK (Food Standards Agency), how to chill, freeze and defrost food safely (new tab) (consulted on 3 October 2026)
- PROMPERÚ, Peruvian recipes (starters, main courses, desserts) (new tab) (consulted on 3 October 2026)
How we choose and date our information: our method. Has something changed? Let us know.