White Recado or Recado Blanco is a traditional Mayan food popular in the Yucatan. Recado blanco is the mildest of Belize’s three traditional spice pastes. Discover all three in our Belizean recado guide.
Recado blanco is the pale one, and the mildest. Black pepper is the bulk of it, with garlic, oregano, clove, cumin, cilantro seed and a pinch of saffron, ground to a paste with white vinegar. It marinates poultry, turkey, pork or beef, and it is what keeps a white relleno white.
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Recado paste, ground spices, and toasted pepitas all keep longer in glass with a silicone seal than in plastic. Tulip-shape glass jars are the editorial pick for spice and paste storage.
Recipes for recado blanco vary widely from cook to cook and village to village. This version includes saffron but not onion, cloves, or cinnamon. Other recado recipe preparations are similar but the spices and ratios are different. Black recado tends to include toasted peppers (for spice and color) and toasted corn tortillas for the black color. Unlike black or white recado, red recado includes a large amount of achiote or annatto which provides the deep red color.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes (no cooking required)
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: Makes about 1/4 cup (approximately 4 tablespoons)
Mayan Recado Blanco Recipe Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon (15 g) black pepper, freshly ground
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon (1 g) dried Mexican oregano
- 2 whole cloves
- 1 pinch cumin seeds
- 1 pinch saffron strands
- 1/4 tablespoon (1 g) cilantro seeds
- White vinegar, as needed for grinding into a paste
Estimated Nutritional Values (per tablespoon):
- Calories: 5 kcal
- Protein: 0.2 g
- Fat: 0.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 1 g
- Fiber: 0.3 g
- Sugar: 0.1 g
Instructions:
- Combine Dry Ingredients: In a small bowl, mix together the black pepper, dried oregano, cloves, cumin seeds, saffron strands, cilantro seeds, and optional coriander seeds.
- Prepare Garlic: Peel and mince the garlic cloves finely.
- Make the Paste: Transfer the mixed dry ingredients and minced garlic into a mortar. Gradually add white vinegar, just enough to help grind the spices into a smooth paste using a pestle or molcajete.
- Store or Use: The recado blanco can be used immediately, or stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Serving Suggestion: Use this mayan recado blanco recipe for White Relleno Soup to marinate meats before grilling or roasting to infuse them with a depth of traditional Yucatecan flavors.
Storage and Make-Ahead
Recado blanco is a wet paste with fresh garlic in it, so it does not keep like the dry red and black blends. Airtight in the refrigerator it holds about a week. The garlic is what limits it.
It freezes for three months. Freeze it in tablespoon portions, since a tablespoon is roughly what a bird or a pot of relleno blanco wants, and a frozen quarter-cup is awkward to divide.
To make it further ahead, grind the dry spices alone and keep that powder in a jar for months. Add the garlic and vinegar on the day you cook. That is the same split that makes the black blend keep, and it works here for the same reason.
Equipment
A molcajete or a mortar and pestle. This is a small quantity of wet paste and an electric grinder will simply throw it up the sides without grinding anything.
Grind the hard spices dry first, then add the garlic, then the vinegar a little at a time. Adding the liquid too early turns the whole thing into a slurry that will not break the peppercorns down.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is recado blanco?
The mildest of the three Yucatecan and Belizean recados. Black pepper leads, with garlic, oregano, clove, cumin, cilantro seed and saffron ground to a paste with white vinegar. It is pale rather than white, and it carries no annatto and no burnt tortilla.
What is white recado called in English?
White recado is the English name, and it is a direct translation. There is no separate traditional English term, so recipes usually keep recado blanco.
What does recado blanco taste like?
Peppery first and last. Black pepper is the bulk of it, so it reads sharp rather than warm, with garlic behind it and the oregano and cumin sitting well back. The saffron is a top note you notice in the finished dish rather than in the paste. No heat, no smoke, no colour.
What is recado blanco used for?
Belizean white relleno above all, and as a marinade for turkey, chicken, pork or beef. In the Yucatán it also goes into puchero, a hearty regional stew (source).
Can I use recado blanco for cochinita pibil?
No. Cochinita pibil is a red recado dish and the colour is half the point. Yucatán Today names recado rojo as the achiote paste behind cochinita pibil (source). Use red recado instead.
Can I leave out the saffron?
Yes, and many versions never had it. Recipes for recado blanco vary from cook to cook and village to village, and saffron is one of the ingredients that comes and goes. Without it the paste is plainer and still recado blanco.
How is it different from red and black recado?
Colour and base. Red recado is built on annatto and stains everything red-orange. Black recado is built on burnt tortillas and turns a dish near-black. Recado blanco adds almost no colour at all, which is exactly why the white relleno stays white.
How much does this make?
About 1/4 cup, roughly 4 tablespoons. That is enough to marinate one bird or season a pot of relleno blanco. It scales up cleanly if you are cooking for a crowd.
Learn about more traditional Belizean ingredients used in Mayan and Mestizo cooking.
Shop This Recipe
Recado blanco is ground by hand in a mortar - whole cloves, cumin seeds, and peppercorns need the friction of unpolished granite to break down into the smooth paste the marinade requires.
Allspice berries go into this recado blanco alongside cloves, cumin, and saffron - whole berries ground fresh in the mortar give the paste a depth that pre-ground allspice cannot match.
The recipe specifies dried Mexican oregano, not Mediterranean - the two are different plants, and substituting the wrong one flattens the Yucatecan spice profile this recado blanco is built around.
Recado blanco sits at the center of Yucatecan Maya cuisine - David Sterling's culinary expedition through the same corridor this recipe comes from documents the broader tradition that produced it.
About Fili Post
Fili Post is from Xaibe in the Corozal District of Belize. She is Mayan. She grew up eating game from the bush — gibnut, deer, chachalaca, iguana — and she has been making her own recado from hand-ground spices for as long as her family can remember. She sold spices at a stall in the Corozal market. She still sources locally and grinds her own blends. Her recado is known to locals as the best they can get. She raised yard birds, guinea fowl, and the occasional pig. She writes for the Belize News Post.
