A creamy, herb-perfumed Andean soup of chicken, three varieties of potato, sweet corn and the indispensable native herb guascas, finished with capers, cream and avocado — the soul of Bogotá.
Ajiaco is to Bogotá what pho is to Hanoi or chowder to Boston: a dish so specifically rooted in place that it tastes of the city's geography. The savanna of the Colombian capital sits at 2,640 metres, surrounded by cold, fertile fields that grow potatoes in dozens of native varieties unknown elsewhere. Ajiaco bogotano insists on three of them, each contributing a different texture to the soup. Papa criolla, a small yellow potato with a buttery flavour and high starch, dissolves almost completely into the broth and thickens it into a golden cream. Papa pastusa, a floury white potato, breaks down halfway, giving body. Papa sabanera (or red potato) is added last and stays whole, contributing chunks you can spear with a spoon. The chicken — usually a whole gallina, an older laying hen — is gently simmered with onion, garlic, scallion and corn cobs, then shredded. But the soul of the dish is guascas, a wild Andean herb (Galinsoga parviflora) that grows like a weed in the Bogotá savanna and has a peculiar fragrance somewhere between artichoke, hay and chamomile — it is sold dried in every Colombian grocery and has no real substitute. The soup is served with a small array of accompaniments that diners stir in to taste: a spoon of heavy cream, a scattering of capers, half an avocado, a few cubes of corn cob from the broth, and a sharp aji picante on the side. The combination — hot, creamy, herbal, faintly grassy, tangy from capers, cool from avocado — is utterly unmistakable and utterly comforting.
Serves 6
Place chicken pieces in a large heavy pot with the water, halved onion, smashed garlic, scallions and a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, skim the foam carefully, then reduce to a low simmer and cook 35 minutes until chicken is tender.
Skimming gives a clear, clean broth — never skip it.
Lift chicken pieces from the pot. Remove and discard skin and bones; shred meat with two forks into bite-sized pieces. Return bones to the broth and simmer another 15 minutes for deeper flavour, then strain broth back into a clean pot, discarding solids. Reserve the shredded chicken.
Bring broth back to a simmer. Add the floury white potato slices and the criolla potatoes and cook 20 minutes — they should break down significantly, with the criolla dissolving and thickening the broth into a pale gold cream.
Stir in the corn cob rounds and the red potato cubes. Simmer another 15 minutes until the red potatoes are tender but still hold shape, and the corn is sweet and easily detached from the cob.
Tasting the soup at this stage tells you everything — adjust salt now.
Stir in the dried guascas (crumbled between your palms) and the shredded chicken. Simmer 5 minutes only — guascas turns bitter if cooked too long. Taste, adjust salt and white pepper. The broth should be creamy, herbal, deeply chicken-flavoured.
Ladle the soup into wide bowls, making sure each bowl gets shredded chicken, both kinds of intact potato cubes, and a couple of corn cob rounds. Set on the table small bowls of heavy cream, drained capers, sliced avocado, chopped coriander and aji picante so each diner customizes their bowl.
Each diner stirs in 2 tbsp heavy cream, 1 tsp capers, lays avocado slices on top, and adds a dash of aji. The cream turns the soup ivory, the capers add salt-bursts, the avocado gives a cool buttery counterpoint, and the aji gives optional fire. Eat with fresh corn arepas if you can find them.
Guascas is genuinely irreplaceable — order online if not local. Without it, you have a nice chicken-potato soup but not ajiaco bogotano.
The three-potato rule matters: the soup is built on textural contrast between dissolved, partly-broken, and intact potato.
Don't skip the capers — they are not optional garnish but a structural acid element that balances the creaminess.
Use bone-in chicken; boneless will give a thin, weak broth that won't carry the dish.
Ajiaco con costilla — add pork ribs along with the chicken for a richer, weekend version.
Vegetarian ajiaco — skip chicken, use vegetable stock, double the corn and add a parmesan rind to the broth for umami.
Quick weekday version — use rotisserie chicken and pre-made low-sodium chicken stock; cuts time to 45 minutes total.
Add white beans or a handful of cooked quinoa for extra body and protein in the final 5 minutes.
Refrigerate up to 4 days; the soup thickens substantially — loosen with broth on reheating. Freezes well 3 months, though the potato texture softens. Always store cream and accompaniments separately and add fresh on serving.
Ajiaco dates back at least to colonial Bogotá, with versions recorded in 18th-century Spanish-Colombian household notebooks, but its roots are clearly indigenous Muisca — the people of the Bogotá savanna cultivated dozens of potato varieties and used guascas as a culinary herb centuries before contact. It became Bogotá's emblematic dish in the 19th century and is now protected by municipal cultural heritage status.
Honestly, no. Some recipes suggest a mix of fresh tarragon and chervil; it's edible but it's not ajiaco. Buy dried guascas online — it lasts a year and a 50 g bag makes the soup five times.
A small, intensely yellow Andean potato variety native to Colombia and Peru. Frozen bags are sold at Latin groceries. They have a buttery flavour and break down into a creamy thickener — no perfect substitute, but baby Yukon golds plus a handful of frozen yellow corn approximate the texture.
Other Colombian regions have other ajiacos (Antioquia's, the coast's), but ajiaco bogotano specifically — with the three potatoes, guascas, capers and cream — is the version that has spread internationally as Colombia's national soup.
No — the corn cob rounds simmered in the broth contribute essential sweetness and starch. Frozen corn-on-the-cob pieces work in a pinch.
Per serving (520g / 18.3 oz) · 6 servings total
Ask our AI cooking assistant anything about this recipe — substitutions, techniques, scaling.
Chat with AI Chef →Join the conversation
Sign in to leave a comment and save your favourite recipes