The backbone of this island’s classics has nothing to do with meat

Plus: A plant-based riff on a weeknight staple, and the essentials of a Puerto Rican pantry

Editor’s Note: Hi, I'm Corinne, editor-in-chief of Cool Beans. A lot of you are new, so I figured I’d take a minute to give you an editor-in-brief look at what we’re about: saving the world by eating delicious food that just happens to be sustainable. Cutting mealtime emissions can mean a lot of things, but often it means eating more plants. In fact, this week, a new analysis found that trimming just half the animal products from our diets can cut agricultural emissions by 31%. Yup: You don't need to go vegan to make a huge dent.

Displacing meat starts with your pantry. We recently laid out must-stock staples for sustainable eating success, but that mostly covered the typical "American" menu. There’s a huge world of exciting cooking to explore, so, from time to time, we'll check in with chefs and experts about the ingredients and flavors that unlock cuisines from all over the globe.

Our ace food writer Gabriella is kicking things off this week by opening up her cupboards to show us how she adapts the staples of Puerto Rican cooking for meatless meals—including a super-quick, veggified spin on a mainstay supper. Plus, paid subscribers also get her back-pocket recipe for sofrito, the blend of aromatics that underpins almost every savory dish on the island.

If you think that sounds delicious, please share us with your hungriest friends.

Now, let’s get to it…

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Puerto Rican cuisine is a melting pot. It blends indigenous Taíno ingredients like yucca and corn, West African cooking techniques like stewing, and Spanish colonial influences like the introduction of rice and oil (and the idea of frying). Also, given that more than 80% of the food on the island is imported, there’s a big reliance on American canned convenience foods. All this converges to create some of the island’s definitive dishes, like picadillo, a seasoned ground beef supper, and sofrito, a flavorful blend of aromatic veggies and herbs that serves as the foundation for most savory recipes. Most of our fridges and freezers, mine included, are stockpiled with the stuff. 

This week, I’m digging into how it—plus a few other shelf-stable essentials—can get you one step closer to quick, meatless island meals. 

The review: This lentil picadillo was made for weeknights

Dinner’s on—way faster than usual. Credit: Gabriella Vigoreaux

Puerto Rican cuisine can be heavy on meat, and picadillo is a prime example. The simmered ground-beef dish crops up everywhere: over rice, in a casserole called pastelón, or stuffed in a fried pastry. Learning how to cook plant-based versions of these mainstays is a challenge, because the meat acts as the sponge for all the underlying flavors, starting with the sofrito at the very beginning of the cooking process. 

Over time, I’ve found that lentils, one of my pantry go-tos, are a great substitute. Plus: The legumes absorb all the goodness from the sofrito in a fraction of the time as meat. A great example of this is Washington Post food writer G. Daniela Galarza’s plant-based picadillo, which is built around two things: a bomb sofrito and canned lentils. All the basics of the classic preparation are there, including raisins and olives (a combo that distinguishes Puerto Rican picadillo from other versions), tomatoes, and sazón seasoning. She does incorporate a couple interesting twists—namely a splash of soy sauce for an umami kick—but the biggest difference is the sofrito. 

Check out the full vegan picadillo recipe at the The Washington Post

Puerto Rican sofrito is typically a medley of onions, garlic, peppers, and culantro, a spiky-leafed cousin of cilantro. Galarza’s slightly earthier version adds mushrooms and carrots, which is a great reminder that picadillo is the perfect place to stash veggies that have been lingering in the fridge. I can see myself making this often. The canned lentils make it super weeknight friendly, though cooking your own might add a little more bite. 

All the sweet-savory-briny notes that make picadillo so satisfying are still there, but in far less time: Normally I would simmer the ground beef in sofrito for 15 minutes, but the canned lentils got the job done in five. Next time I make it, it will go even faster (and dirty fewer dishes) because I’ll reach for the mealtime cheat-code in my freezer: cubes of sofrito ready to hop in the pan and sizzle in seconds. 

The recipe: A make-ahead flavor hero to stash in your freezer