skip to Main Content

Peruvian cuisine: 10 Must-Eat Dishes

Today we share you 10 dishes of Cusco to taste when traveling to the Peruvian city.

The gastronomy of Peru has been classified by many expert chefs as one of the best in the world because of its wide variety of flavours and aromas, so authentic as ancient, as well as its nutritional richness.

The city of Cusco, especially, has one of the best dishes of the Andes Peruvian where prevails the use of the potato and the corn. While it is a destination very chosen by tourists for its history, Andean landscapes and their Inca constructions, the gastronomy is has returned nowadays essential part of the tourist attractions.

The common places to eat traditional dishes are restaurants called picanterías or chichas. The best are located around the Plaza de Armas and some offer peñas with live music and folcklore dance.

On your visit to the Peruvian city this are the 10 Must-Eat Dishes:

10 Must-Eat Dishes

1) Puchero / Timpu / Sanchochado: It is a cow breast, a head of lamb, bacon and potatoes boiled. Then leaves of cabbage, moraya, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, peaches and rice. It serves the broth only and separate all it boiled. It is a typical dish from Carnival.

10 platos típicos de Cusco para probar

2) Chuño Cola: It is a spicy soup based potatoes dehydrated and dried to the sun, called chuño. It is accompanied by garbanzo beans, rice, and various meats. It is a dish that can be eaten at any time of the year.

3) Caldo de Gallina: Soup with a piece of chicken, rice, moraya white and onion chinese chopped and seasonings that give it a nice flavor.

10 platos típicos de Cusco para probar

4) Rocoto Relleno: There are rocotos boiled, stuffed with a menjunge of meat, peanuts, raisins, corn and peas. There are fried in oil accompanied with potatoes.

5) Cuy Chactado Cusqueño: Cuy with herbs and seasonings and cooked in clay oven. When already brittle, you remove it from the oven and served with potatoes baked and hearty chili.

10 platos típicos de Cusco para probar

6) Olluquito con charqui cusqueño:  It is one of the most representative dishes since it has two ingredients that are exclusively Peruvian: olluco, a type of potato growing in the Andes and charqui which is the dried llama meat.

7) Chicharrón a la cusqueña: Meat of pork fried in their own fat that is served with salad of onion and with potatoes boiled and corn fresh.

8) Adobo: Pork seasoned in chicha and spices and cooked in clay pot. It is eaten with bread from Cusco.

10 platos típicos de Cusco para probar

9) Lechón al horno: It is a dish that carries pieces of pork roasted, accompanied of the Tamale cusquenian and potatoes dehydrated called moraya. It is a festive dish, por example at Christmas dinner.

10) Kapchi de habas: It is a cold dish of fresh cheese, beans, onions and potatoes that are seasoned with milk and pepper. Served with rice. It is the favorite dish of the last months of the year.

Useful Information

Some restaurants where to taste the typical dishes of Cusco:

Tips

Because of the height of the city (3,399 msnv) the digestion of the food can take more time than normal. So it is recommended to the newly arrived tourists that at least wait a day to eat spicy foods, since it may be a factor to feel the “soroche”, the famous evil of the heights. It is also recommended to only drink bottled water.

[:]