Red recado is the achiote paste that makes Belizean food look and taste the way it does. Annatto seed ground with black pepper, cumin, clove, oregano, allspice and cinnamon, rolled into balls and kept for months. In Spanish it is recado rojo or recado colorado. It is the most common of the three pastes: see our guide to Belizean recado for how it compares to black and blanco.
Today we are sharing a closely held family secret Belizean Red Recado Recipe. This authentic recipe was written by 80-year-old Mayan Granny. She grinds her spices in the Corozal District and will accept special orders. Our recipe is intended to make a supply of red recado that could last several months.
1400S Spices Ceylon Cinnamon Sticks from Sri Lanka, 1lb (Canela Entera)
Ceylon cinnamon is sweeter and milder than cassia — the right choice for atole, conkies, and sweet drinks. These are whole dried sticks from Sri Lanka.
What Red Recado Is, and What It Tastes Like
Red recado is a paste, not a powder. Annatto is the bulk of it and the source of the colour, ground with oregano, cumin, clove, cinnamon, black pepper, allspice, garlic and salt, and worked together with sour orange juice or vinegar. It is also called recado colorado, and the blend is most common across the Yucatán and Belize (source).
It does not taste hot. Annatto itself is mild and slightly peppery with a faint earthiness, and what you notice first is the warm spice: clove and allspice at the front, cumin underneath, oregano through the middle. The heat in a Belizean dish comes from habanero added separately, never from the recado.
In English it usually gets called achiote paste or annatto paste, and on a shop shelf you may see it as red recado or recado rojo with no translation at all.
Belizean Red Recado Recipe Ingredients
- 4 lbs (1.8 kg) fresh annatto seeds
- 1 cup (110 g) black pepper
- 1 cup (100 g) cumin seeds
- 1/2 cup (45 g) whole cloves
- 1 cup (60 g) dried oregano
- 1/2 cup (45 g) allspice berries
- 3 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces
- Salt to taste
Alternative Ingredients:
- For a milder version, reduce the black pepper by half.
- Use ground spices for quicker preparation, though toasting and grinding whole spices will provide a fresher, more robust flavor.
Recado Rojo Recipe Instructions:
- For the most authentic recipe, you will need to acquire whole achiote seeds still in their pods. Husking the pods and removing the fresh seeds is a key step for the best results. The seeds should be semi-dried but not entirely dried. Knowing exactly how fresh vs. how dry can be learned by trial and error.
- Using a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle, grind the spices in batches until finely ground. My grandmother always uses a hand-cranked meat grinder with a spice grinder attachment.
- Test your spice grinder’s coarse vs. fine adjustments. You can see in the image below the consistency desired.
- Mix the ground spices with the annatto seeds in a bowl until well combined.
- Roll the recado paste into tablespoon-sized balls.
- Put about 5 to 10 recado balls in small plastic bags.
- Store the red recado in an airtight container, away from direct sunlight and heat.
Storage and Make-Ahead
Rolled into balls and kept airtight, away from light and heat, red recado holds its colour and flavour for a year and stays usable well beyond that. It does not spoil so much as fade: the aromatics go first, the annatto colour lasts longest. A ball that still stains your fingers red but smells of nothing is past its best.
Freeze it if you have made the full 4 lb batch. Bag the balls in fives and tens as above and they keep years frozen with no loss. There is no need to thaw before use.
Once you loosen a ball into a wet paste with sour orange or vinegar, treat it as fresh: refrigerate and use within a week.
Equipment
A grinder that can take hard seed. Annatto is genuinely hard and will blunt a cheap blade grinder. The hand-cranked meat grinder with a spice attachment in the photograph above is the Corozal answer and it is the right tool.
A mortar and pestle works for small quantities and is a long job at this scale.
Something to store it in that does not stain and does not breathe. Annatto colours everything it touches, so glass beats plastic for the keeping jar.
Tips and Tricks:
- For the best flavor, grind the spices just before making the recado. Use organic ingredients.
- If you prefer a paste, blend the ground spices with vinegar to the desired consistency.
- Authentic red recado does not include paprika or turmeric, and neither is a good substitute.
- Black recado is not the same as red recado. It is charred rather than red, and it goes into different dishes.
Nutrition is estimated from standard ingredient labels, per tablespoon.
What to Cook With It
Use red recado as a rub for meats or as a base for stews and sauces. It pairs exceptionally well with pork, chicken and fish. The everyday Belizean use is stew chicken, and it also carries recado BBQ chicken, baked chicken, pork steaks and tamales.
Our seven best red recado recipes collects the lot in one place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is red recado called in English?
Achiote paste, or annatto paste. There is no traditional English name of its own, so English-language shops and recipes usually keep the Spanish and call it red recado or recado rojo.
What can I use as a substitute for red recado?
A shop-bought achiote paste is the only close substitute, and Yucatecan and Mexican brands are the ones to look for. Failing that, grind annatto seed with equal parts cumin and oregano plus a pinch each of clove and allspice, and loosen with vinegar. Paprika and turmeric are not substitutes. They give you the colour and none of the flavour, which is the wrong half.
What does red recado taste like?
Warm and earthy rather than hot. Clove and allspice lead, cumin sits underneath, oregano runs through the middle, and the annatto itself is mild and faintly peppery. It is not a chilli paste and it adds no heat.
Is achiote paste the same as red recado?
Effectively yes, and the names are used interchangeably. Achiote is the annatto seed that gives the paste its colour, so achiote paste and recado rojo describe the same thing. Recipes and brands vary in their spice balance more than the two names do.
Is annatto the same as recado?
No. Annatto is one ingredient, the seed. Recado is the finished blend of annatto plus the spices. Annatto alone will colour a dish and will not season it.
How long does red recado last?
A year airtight and out of the light, and longer than that frozen. It fades rather than spoils, losing its aromatics first while the colour holds. Loosened into a wet paste it becomes perishable and wants using within a week.
Do I need fresh annatto seed in the pod?
For the version on this page, yes. The seeds want to be semi-dried rather than fully dried, and that is what husking your own pods gives you. Fully dried shop seed makes a workable recado and a drier, harder one.
How much does this recipe make?
About 2 cups of paste from 4 lb of annatto seed, which is roughly 32 tablespoon-sized balls and a supply for several months. It scales down cleanly if you want a jar rather than a year’s worth.
Discover more about the essential ingredients of Belizean cooking in our Belizean ingredients A to Z guide.
Shop This Recipe
The achiote-based paste behind stew chicken, pibil, and escabeche. Sold ready-made so you skip toasting and grinding annatto, cumin, oregano, and clove from seed.
Four pounds of fresh annatto seeds are the base of this recipe - the post explains the seeds must be semi-dried rather than fully dried, a consistency diaspora cooks can only hit by sourcing whole pods.
Half a cup of whole allspice berries go into this recado batch - whole berries grind to a fresher, sharper flavor than pre-ground, which the recipe notes directly as the difference between a robust and a flat paste.
The recipe instructs grinding annatto, cumin, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon in batches - unpolished granite grips dry spices so the paste builds rather than sliding around the bowl.
About Isela Post
Isela is a Belizean mother who has been cooking from memory and from markets her whole life. Her recipes carry the food of the Yucatec Maya tradition, the corner store ingredients of daily Belizean life, and the party table of every celebration she has ever fed people at. She writes for the Belize News Post.
