Sofrito is the spice of life. Okay, well, it’s the spice base of cooking Cuban food. The exact ingredients depend on the specific food you’re trying to cook, but generally, you can count on salt, ground black pepper, garlic, onion, cumin, olive oil, tomato, and either white wine or white vinegar. Some dishes will call for fresh herbs and spices, and some will require dried. But either way, don’t let the sofrito scare you off. The sofrito is easy, but essential to Cuban cooking.

Sofrito is all about beginnings. As you get accustomed to Cuban cooking, the sofrito is the expected spice base in what you’re making. When I ask my mother how to cook such and such food, she usually says something like, “First, you make your sofrito,” or “Once the meat is browned, you add your sofrito.” The sofrito is pretty consistently present in the typical Cuban dish.

But the sofrito is not static. It changes with each recipe. To some foods, you add oregano and lemon. For others, you add pimento olives and the brine. Throughout my childhood, I never would have guessed that cumin was a spice Cuban folks use in a sofrito because as one member of my family didn’t like cumin, we completely took it out of all our recipes. I have since added it back in for the most part, but what I’m saying here is that sofrito is a su gusto—to your taste. If you hate olives, don’t add them. If you think you need more onion, go ahead. Make these recipes your own.

A simple Cuban *sofrito* using fresh green pepper, minced white onions, and garlic.

Here are 2 recipes to know for Cuban cooking. Classic Sofrito is the recipe that we tend to use for meat dishes, such as carne con papa (a beef chuck roast with potatoes). The Easy Sofrito makes soups a breeze, like the classic Cuban black bean soup. 2 Notes: 1) Remember, you will add spices and remove spices from this list depending on what you’re cooking, and 2) You always taste test before serving. If it doesn’t taste right, add spices liberally, except for salt. Be careful with how much salt you add.