Name: Sofrito
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 2 green bell peppers, seeded and chopped; 1 red bell peppers, seeded and chopped; 10 ajies dulces peppers, tops removed; 3 medium tomatoes, chopped; 4 onions, cut into large chunks; 3 medium heads garlic, peeled; 25 cilantro stems (with leaves); 25 recao stems (with leaves); 1 tablespoon salt; 1 tablespoon black pepper

Sofrito is the base for most Puerto Rican dishes, and this one is better than store bought (difficult to find in the stores in the Western United States). This can be added to beans, rice, soups, stews, you name it.

Sofrito

green bell peppers,

red bell peppers,

ajies dulces peppers,

tomatoes,

onions,

garlic,

cilantro stems (with leaves)

recao stems (with leaves)

salt

black pepper

In a food processor, combine green peppers, red peppers ajies dulces, tomatoes, onions, and garlic. Add cilantro, recao, salt, and pepper. Process to the consistency of semi-chunky salsa (not watery). Place in a resealable plastic freezer bag, and use as needed, or freeze in portions.


My aunt owns a Puerto Rican store where she makes homemade sofrito to sell. The ingrdients posted are the same as hers and maybe not exactly like hers but it is AWESOME! Anyone who cooks with store bought jarred sofrito will be blown away by the homemade stuff. I absolutely refuse to buy the processed stuff anymore. I am very happy to see this recipe on this site!

Just an idea to save time when cooking.  I make my sofrito in bulk and I freeze it in ice cube trays.  I have trays dedicated to do just this.  Once they are frozen I bag them and keep them in the freezer.  When ready to cook I pull out one or two cubes (each cube should be about one tablespoon).  Freezing it will preserve the flavor and it will last longer.  I learned this from my mother and it really works well.  When I make my bulk I share with my daughters and they do the same with it.  I don't add salt to the sofrito recipe until I am ready to cook.  Happy cooking!

This is such an important seasoning...it's the stuff that makes you wonder "what is that taste?" It's soooo good!  The only difference between this recipe and mine is that I don't use green bell pepper, instead I use Cubanelle peppers (I've also seen them called Italian peppers or Italian Frying Peppers).  It's a long light green pepper and it's got a much better flavor than green bell pepper.  I also don't add salt and pepper (I add those when I actually cook with it).  If you don't want red bell pepper or tomato...leave them out and what you have left is a mixture called "Recaito"...I use recaito when I make habichuelas (bean stew).  I have very picky friends and relatives but whenever I make my arroz con gandules (yellow rice with pigeon peas) or arroz con maiz (yellow rice with sweet corn)....they have 2 or 3 servings, and what makes them taste so good is sofrito baby!  USE IT!

I Love Love LOVE Sofrito in my food. My husband is not Puerto Rican and gets a little overwhelmed especially since I use a little more garlic in mine.  I also season in with Adobo not salt and pepper. I love the taste of adobo and since I season most of my food with it anyway I just add it to my sofrito. I love it in black beans ESPECIALLY! I don't use the culantro or red pepper. I just use onion, green pepper, garlic, cilantro and sometimes in a blue moon, I spice it up with a jalapeno or serano. Great classic recipe...makes the house smell...happy. 

This almost the one, except you don't add tomato until find out if you need it in the recipe.  We've solved this by making one of each. It can be placed in small containes, labelled and frozen until ready for use

Very very simple to make. Took just minutes to finish this one. Strong cilantro flavor. I didn't have recao or ajies dulces, and used red tomatoes. This is really good stuff. Used it to make Habichuelas Guisadas and Carne Guisada III. Also wonderful with tortilla chips and as a condiment for a bowl of chili con carne (that's what my teenager did). Mine didn't turn out with that beautiful green color in the picture by latina cook, but the flavor was out of this world! A keeper.... Highly recommended!

there is nothing like homemade sofrito just the smell of it when i add it to my food is insane. store bought sofrito is BAH!!!

Real puerto ricans dont use Cilantro, only Culantro. And no bell peppers. Use ajices dulces and ajitos

Nena, my mom is a real, 100% Puerto Rican born and raised on the island. She uses green bell peppers, a whole head of garlic, one onion, and one bunch of CILANTRO and not culantro, because we can't find it here in Central Illinois. Everyone has their own way of making sofrito. Just use what you can find, and if you can't find all the stuff in this recipe, try my mom's way and your food'll taste just as good. :) Add sofrito to any ground meat that you're cooking along with some teriyaki sauce and adobo criollo seasoning if you can find it (look in a hispanic grocery store).

I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and this is a great sofrito recipe. There are different variations  on how to prepare sofrito; some people add ham, others add annato (achiote) to give it color, etc.  

I personally leave out the salt and black pepper (this is the first I've heard of adding those seasonings to sofrito) just because it you want to have control of how much salt you will add to the dish (especially if you're in a salt restricted diet).  If you aren't Puertorican and you're following a recipe from a recipe book or internet, you'll notice it will contain salt or adobo. 

Usually recao (culantro), and ajies dulces (very similiar to habanero peppers but they are sweet), are hard to find (at least here in the northern states), so don't get frustrated, it's ok if you don't add them... trust me, the sofrito will still turn out to be great!

Kudos to you "FIVEBRIGS" for adding this recipe!!!

SOME OF THESE INGREDIENTS I DID NOT HAVE ON HAND, SO I OMITTED THEM. IT STILL TURNED OUT AWSOME! (- RED PEPPER, - AJIES DULCES, - RECAO OR CULANTRO) I THINK THESE ITEMS WERE MEANT TO BE SUBSTITUTES IF YOU READ TOWARDS THE BOTTOM OF THE RECIPE.

Ahh the smell of making sofrito always takes me back when I was a little girl helping my mom cook. When I make sofrito, I think about making something that is all natural. I don't add salt or pepper to my sofrito. I add seasonings when I am preparing the meal. Also, I place my just made sofrito into ice cube trays. This way I can have pre-measured easy access everytime. Buy ice cube trays especially for sofrito. You don't want to use your everyday trays less you want your beverages tasting like cilantro. I fill the ice cube trays with the sofrito, wrap the trays tightly (you don't want your ice cream tasting like sofrito), freeze, pop out the frozen sofrito cubes and place then in a zip lock freezer bag. 

This is it!  The real deal!  Best sofrito recipe on the internet.  

Instead of going crazy and peeling 3 garlic heads worth of cloves, I buy them already peeled and use 15 cloves per garlic, so in this recipe, it'd be 15x3=45 garlic cloves.  I also used Italian green peppers instead of bell and 1 sweet Italian red pepper.  

The amount is also perfect to pass out to a few family members as well.  I enjoy sharing the wealth lol!

This sofrito smells divine, and tastes amazing!!  I cooked it with pernil.  Mouth watering!  Was a hit with my family.

Bon appetit!!

Great recipe!!  If you look at it compared to Goya, consider this: when you make your own you have no preservatives and especially no MSG.  Almost all Goya seasonings have MSG which is why I am always on the lookout for recipes to make my own. The reviews for this are awesome, can't wait to make it.  Thanks so much for the recipe. 
(FYI, MSG has a lot of "aliases"...yeast extract, autolyzed soy protein, they can even call it "natural flavoring"...it's crazy, and hard if you are avoiding it.)
Thanks to the person who suggested ice cubes also...great idea!

This is it! This is really the stuff! It is a little differant that I am used to, but I am not sure what the differance is.  I use Sofrito on EVERYTHING. I think it goes with everything, but perhaps that is because it is supposed to! :)

It's nice to know acceptable substitutions.  Not everyone has access to culantro and ajies dulces.  There are real Puerto Ricans, nena, who use cilantro as well as culantro in their sofrito.  This is a very good recipe.  I like the Puerto Rican version of sofrito the best.

These are good ingredients... In my sofrito I always use two bunches of culantro not to be confused with cilantro, 2 bunches of cilantro, at least 12 cloves of garlic, an onion, and 4 peppers (2 red and 2green) I omit salt, pepper, and tomatoes since a lot of puerto Rican dishes have a lot of different seasoning anyway.

Excellent! Came out perfect! This is the real deal! My local latin market was out of ajies dulces-so I used red peppers instead. Made the difference with my habiculeas rojas!!

I seldom make a review, but had to take a moment to give a BIG Thank You for this recipe! Thanks so very much for sharing this! If I could I'd give you a hug....

I love, love, love this recipe. I took the advice to make it in bulk and freeze it in ice cube trays and store the cubes in a plastic bag. It makes the arroz con pollo meal much easier that way. It doesn't lose flavor when you use the sofrito frozen. Thanks for this one.

Thanks for posting this recipe. I've been trying to perfect my sofrito for a while now, and your proportions are dead on! Great job! For those who don't know, this seasoning/sauce is the base flavor used in most Puerto Rican cooking. My mom used to hand chop her sofrito every night, but big batches are the way of our generation.

Awesome Fivebrigs, first sofrito I found  non the internet that is like mine. Ive been making my own sofrito for years and this is so like mine. The only difference in mine is I dont add the salt as I add this when Im cooking, reason being I season my meats before I freeze them which has salt,sazon, adobo etc.
Great job

All the ingredients are there but the tomato, salt and pepper don't go with it. Tomato because some recipes don't use tomato. Salt and pepper because some people don't use salt and pepper.

Very good! the only thing I added were 4 tomatillos

Esta receta como hacer un buen "Sofrito" Es la mejor para darme buen gusto al mi arroz con pollo y con gandulez tendremos que aprender de usted muchas personas cracias por sus recetas.

I have made this sofrito twice and I really love it....very flavorful.  I use it in all Latin recipes that I make that call for sofrito

I make this a couple times a year and keep about 1/2 cup in baggies to throw in soup, stew, even chili.  It makes everything so flavorful!

This sofrito is so good!   We use this in our Puero Rican beans and it tastes awesome.  The flavor is great and really authentic.  My husband worked in PR for a while and loves the food.  We made the full batch and freezed it in ice cube trays as per the recommendation.  

This is a deceptive seasoning.  It smells like it is going to be a lot spicier than it actually tastes.  Very easy to make and very tasty.

So this is what Sofrito, is supposed to taste like. I always wondered why my rice and beans didn’t taste like that of my PR friends. I guess I can get rid of the GOYA. Thanks

If you have a food processor, it takes no time at all to make homemade fresh sofrito.  This is simply delicious!

this is how i do it except the tomato.  no tomato if what your cooking calls for tomato flavor or color add no salt tomato sauce in the little cans.  !!!  que linda

Great recipe!  It reminds me of the one my mother used to make for habichuelas rosadas (from San Sebastian)!

This is the definitive sofrito recipe!  This was my first time ever making sofrito.  I ended up making more than the recipe, most of which I froze.  I could not find the ajies dulces so omitted them. I used a hand blender and it worked!  It would have been too time consuming to blend each batch in blender as I do not have a food processor. I also added olive oil and (1) packet of Sazon Goya with achiote.  First dish I made with this was Arroz Junto (not on this website) with smoked sausage and pinto beans.  It is true, the smell is out of this world when cooking with sofrito. Thanks FIVEBRIGS!

I grew up in Central America and know sofrito well.   My mom always added some achiote -steeped oil to hers. We had access to culantro but not the cilantro I see in the markets here in south Texas.  It's fun to see how passionate people are about the style of sofrito from their particular country. To me, it's just no biggie if you use tomatoes or not, green peppers or red (how about a couple of jalapenos)! The kind I'm most familar with is probably Cuban.  Throw in some diced ham while simmering and it's a wonderful pasta sauce.

This is a great recipe. My fam. recipe leaves out the tomatoes for the sofrito. We usually just buy tomato paste and add it to the dishes accordingly (as some don't required as much tomato taste).

I made this last night and I haven't felt so "Puerto Rican" in a long time...lol!  I did omit the tomato's...i remember my mom never put tomato in it and didn't find the aji dulce so I used the italian peppers.  It smelled so good in the house.  I loved it.  I froze some in an ice cube tray and put the rest in containers.  THANK YOU!!!

I don't know why I didn't do this sooner, what a way to save veggies and herbs from going bad in the frig!  I could not find the ajies dulces peppers or culantro, so I just used what I had on hand, threw in some fresh basil and a about a tsp of Adobo seasoning.  I used this in Arroz con Gandules and froze the rest in freezer bags so I have them on hand when I don't have the time to chop up all those fresh veggies!  This will be a staple in my recipe box now!

Fivebrigs, Thank you so much! I have only ever used bottled sofrito from the market. The stuff in the bottle should have another name. This sofrito is amazing! The fresh lively flavor is good on ANYthing! I cant eat scrambled eggs or beans without it anymore. I put in one serrano, as I like a bit of heat. I make it about 2x a week now and keep it on the table whenever we eat, it even has it's own bottle. Everyone who tries it absolutely loves it. Thanks for sharing a little bit of your home with mine.

This was great! and fantastically good for my arroz con gandules. I would take out the tomatoes and add 1/4 cup of olive oil so it would last long. I always use this stuff and keep them frozen.

I can't believe how deliciously good this stuff is!
Preserving some cilantro was my goal when i found this recipe, and this wonderful condiment is so much more than just that. I used a dollop to make salsa with and it was the best salsa i've ever tasted.
This is gonna be a staple in my kitchen from now on! Hurray!

Nothing better!! Thanks a million for this recipe! I freeze in ice trays and throw in 1 cube for every 2 people!

As part of a social studies assignment, the kids tried several different recipes from the Caribbean. We made this with our black beans and it was so good, we saved the extra to use with some other dishes. Thanks for sharing the recipe.

I make muine a little different. I use a can of tomato sauce, onion, cilantro garlic, salt, pepper, adobo, and sazon. thats basically it. It turns out delicious! Probably a little les traditional though. 

I love Sofrito!!! Sometimes I add more tomatoes and a little more red pepper for a beautiful red color. This makes rice taste awesome! and other things like chopped meat, turkey or beef. So good!

Good recipe, the best thing is that you can adapt it in any way basically- I added more cilantro and yellow bell peppers one batch, then the other had more garlic and tomato I beleive.  This recipe is essential for any Latin dish/ dip, etc. if you want to produce a mouthwatering result!

Very good. I made this sofrito several times with or without ajies dulces or recao, I changed the proportions and it came good all time. 

This stuff is the key ingredient to Puerto Rican cooking.  Love it!

Good grief where has this been all my life!

Good recipe, but I think you'll find that replacing the red pepper with a Cubanelle (Pimiento) pepper is a more traditional choice.  This is a lot like my Boriqua Fiance's Traditional recipes. Her family owns a popular Puerto Rican Restaurant. Of course she adjusts ingredient proportions according to taste since each vegetable doesn't always taste identical to the next. Tomatoes are optional.

Less spices, try to make it for more people with the same food quality.

Delicious! The kitchen smelled wonderful while I was preparing this. I opened up a jar of store-bought sofrito just to compare the aroma~ the homemade stuff smelled incredible next to the jar. I used this in Fivebrigs recipe for habichuelas and puerto rican rice. Excellent!***a quick update. I just used some of the sofrito that I froze, and i do not find the flavor nearly as robust as the fresh!

Smelled wonderful in our kitchen while making this - taste is fantastic. Tried this on a beef stew, next I am going to roast a chicken with this. Thanks for such a great recipe!

I loved this recipe. I am a NYer who grew up on spanish foods. So when I came across this recipe I tried it. My rice and beans thank you. Arroz con pollo me gusta even more LOL!
I only gave it 4 stars because I added more garlic and used goya sazon con annatto(4packs).

I loved how this came out, so much better than store bought.  I think I will eliminate some of the tomatoe next time as it was a bit watery.

Amazing! I have made this multiple times and it has always been a hit with both my Puerto Rican in-laws and my own family as well. We use it in many, many dishes. The possibilities are endless.

Great base for all sorts of dishes!  Definitely freeze the extras in ice cube trays for future use.

This is a very good puerto rican sofrito. Wish I could fine a cuban sofrito as good as this one.

This is so easy to make!
Its fresh, bright, and will be amazing in future meals!
I'm freezing mine in ice cube trays, then transferring to a ziploc bag to add into beans, soups, and Latin dishes :-)
Bonus!  It smells AMAZING!

Edited rating to reflect 5 stars -- not sure why I rated it 4 stars. I've made this recipe several times and just freeze in ice cube trays for later uses. I especially love using this recipe for sofrito along with the author's other recipes. There is another recipe for sofrito on this site, which is easier due to less ingredients, but although good, it does not compare in flavor to this one.

Like explained, this is a building block and can be added to so many different things. This Sofrito is amazingly delicious. I grilled shrimp and added it to the sofrito and bam, here you go!

I made this and the flavor was out of this world. In NJ I am able to find the authentic and hard to find ingredients like Culantro and Aji Dulce in Aqui or Twin City Supermarkets. I did not add tomato, pepper or salt since those are added later according to your recipe. I remember my aunt saying "Sofrito no lleva tomate".  Sofrito does not include tomato.  After your make this sofrito, your arroz con pollo will be a breeze.

Can't wait to add this seasoning base to my cooking! I had this on a slow roasted pork shoulder and fell in love with the taste! I'm not Puerto Rican, but I love good food!!! Thanks for the recipe.Keep sharing

Authentic! This recipe is spot on!  Thankfully, I did not have to substitute anything; I found ajies dulces and recao.  It is so good that I had to make a batch for my mother.  It has taken my beans to the next level.

Best recipe 4 sofrito.  I just add extra garlic  cuz i luv garlic taste &amp; flavor

I have a question about this Sofrito recipe, as I have never made nor eaten Sofrito.   (It sounds delicious, so I plan to make it.  I did have to put stars as a rating just to get my question in.)  Does it really take 3 HEADS of garlic?  That sounds pretty garlicy to me.  Or did the author mean 3 CLOVES of garlic instead?  I checked out some other online Sofrito recipes, and they seem to call for just a few cloves.  Maybe the author or the community can help me out in knowing how much garlic I need to use. Thanks in advance.

This recipe is great! Just remember that it varies between Caribbean families (I'm Dominican) and you're SUPPOSED TO change it to taste... 
Here is this weeks mix: I didn't use tomato.  I added about 1/3 cup of Oregano, 1/3-1/2 cup of EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) I used red onions instead of yellow, some salt/pepper , and an extra head of garlic. 
I taste as I go and some weeks I feel like throwing in more of one thing over the other. Thanks for sharing!

 i'M NOT A BIG FAN OF PUERTO RICAN SOFRITO PUT THIS IS OKAY. THIS PR SOFRITO DOES NOT LOOK GOOD(GREEN) BUT IT TASE BETTER THAN IT LOOKS. .i AM LOOKING FOR A 5 STAR SOFRITO LIKE MY  BEST FRIEND MAMA (MARRGO) JUST MAKE. I REALLY MISS HER AND HER COOKING

Would use less garlic next time, but otherwise I love the flavor.

I could not find recao, or culantro leaves or  ajies dulces peppers.

Sofrito

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total: 20 minutes

Servings: 5

Cost: $4.25 /serving

Author : FIVEBRIGS

Ingredients

Instructions

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