The Best Capirotada I've Ever Had

By far, the best capirotada — that piloncillo-soaked bread pudding layered with fruits and nuts and topped with savory cheese — I have ever tasted was in Jinetes de Machado, a tiny village of fewer than 100 people tucked in the Sierra Madre of Sinaloa. The people of Jinetes live off the grid. They grow what they eat, cook over fire, and have preserved their recipes for generations — not as a novelty, but because that's simply how life is. The women made capirotada with bread baked over a wood fire, piloncillo simmered with cinnamon and cloves, and layers of plantains, prunes, peanuts and guava paste. It was the first time I had tried guava in this dish and it was brilliant! You can watch that whole adventure in the "Adventure in the Mountains" episode of Pati's Mexican Table…

I've always thought of capirotada as something that belongs entirely to Mexico. You won't find it — not by that name, not in that form — anywhere else in Latin America or the Caribbean. So imagine my fascination when I started looking into where it actually comes from.

It turns out that the roots go all the way back to ancient Rome, where cooks layered stale bread with cheese and vinegar so nothing went to waste. By medieval Spain, it had become a savory dish — roasted meats, bread, cheese, pepper, nutmeg. The name comes from "capirote," the tall pointed hood worn during Catholic Easter processions. The dish was "capped" with cheese on top, like a little hat. When it crossed the Atlantic, Mexican cooks made it theirs — piloncillo instead of sugar, tropical fruits, nuts — and turned that savory Spanish stew into the sweet, syrupy bread pudding we crave every spring.

There's also a thread in this history that moves me. During the colonial era, crypto-Jewish families practicing their faith in secret made their own version and called it "pan de semita" — Semitic bread — eaten during Passover. The Inquisition recorded their recipes and those archives still exist. Many of these families settled in northern Mexico — Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas — and their food traditions survived for centuries, passed down without families always knowing where they came from.

One dish: ancient Rome, medieval Spain, crypto-Jewish kitchens, and the Mexican cooks who made it their own. Now Mexicans crave it wherever they may be in the world!

Cuaresma is here — and my favorite capirotada recipes are below, along with some seafood, rice, and veggie dishes you may want to try, whether you celebrate Easter, Passover, or just want to cook something new. I'm also starting three new short sections — This Month’s Recipes, What I’m Into Right Now where I share what I'm reading, listening to, and cooking lately, and Hey Pati where I answer your questions. Please, send me yours anytime at [email protected].

Un abrazo, 

Q: Hi Pati, We love your show and have been watching for years. Recently parts of your shows are in Spanish. We don't speak Spanish. Does anyone else have an issue with this? — Jo H.

A: I'm glad you asked! When I'm traveling through Mexico, I speak Spanish with the people I meet because I want to give them full agency — to participate in their own language, tell their stories in their own words, without me translating to camera mid-conversation. That breaks the natural flow and makes everyone uncomfortable, even me. What I love most about my show is that it's unscripted. The magic happens when people feel free to just be, and that means letting them speak in the language that's theirs. Closed captioning is always there so you never miss a word. — Pati