17 recipes using tomatoes — Ajiaco, bandeja paisa, arepas — hearty and vibrant Andean cooking.
These 17 colombian tomatoes recipes are ready in about 57 minutes on average, with 190–1280 kcal per serving, and 47% are rated easy enough for a weeknight. Every recipe includes exact ingredient quantities, step-by-step instructions and full nutrition per serving.
Colombian cuisine — Ajiaco, bandeja paisa, arepas — hearty and vibrant Andean cooking — brings its own distinctive techniques and seasonings to every ingredient it touches. When Colombian cooks work with tomatoes, they reach for its own regional aromatics, fats and signature spice blends, and the techniques that come up most across these recipes are simmering, frying, grilling and boiling.
Sweet-acidic fruit that forms the backbone of sauces, stews and salads across nearly every cuisine. In this collection it's most often cooked with ground cumin, garlic, onion, fine sea salt, scallions and neutral oil. The dishes here span colombian classics ready in as little as 15 minutes to slower, more involved cooking that rewards a relaxed afternoon.
Reader favourite: Bandeja Paisa is the highest-rated dish in this collection at 4.9★ from 2,640 ratings.
Colombia's most legendary meal — a monumental platter from the Antioquia region featuring red beans, chicharrón, minced beef, chorizo, fried egg, sweet plantain, avocado, hogao sauce and rice.
Colombia's great hearty stew — chicken, yuca, plantain, corn and potato simmered in a golden, herb-scented broth. Sunday lunch across the nation.
Colombian platter with beans, rice, beef, chicharrón, eggs, plantain, avocado — Antioquia's mountain feast.
Twice-fried, smashed green plantain rounds — golden and crispy, the indispensable Colombian side dish eaten with hogao, guacamole, or black beans.
Versatile Colombian spiced beef mince with tomatoes, onions, and herbs — the workhorse filling for arepas, pasteles, empanadas, and rice bowls.
Colombia's hearty breakfast tostada: thick-cut bread fried golden in butter, topped with hogao (tomato-onion sauce) and a fried egg. Simple, satisfying, regional.
Crispy golden fried empanadas with a corn-dough shell and spiced beef and potato filling — the definitive Colombian street snack eaten with ají verde.
Soft scrambled eggs with tomato and scallion, based on huevos pericos, a beloved Colombian breakfast-for-dinner classic.
A quick grilled steak salad with avocado, tomato and fresh mint, built the way Colombian home cooks turn leftover grilled meat into a bright weeknight plate.
A one-pan Colombian chicken and potato bake built on the same cumin, achiote and tomato base as classic pollo sudado.
Grilled Colombian chorizo piled onto crusty bread with grilled pineapple and a spicy ají sauce for real sweet-heat balance.
Beef and pork meatballs simmered in an achiote-colored herb sauce, Colombia's real answer to saffron-tinted dishes.
A baked take on Colombia's coastal pescado sudado, whole fish braised in a herby tomato-onion sauce until falling-apart tender.
A crisp Colombian-style chopped salad of tomato, avocado and hearts of palm dressed simply with lime and cracked black pepper.
A slow-braised pot of potatoes, plantain, squash and corn in a browned-garlic tomato sofrito, the vegetarian cousin of Colombia's classic sudado stews.
Charred bell peppers stuffed with seasoned ground beef, rice and a spoonful of tomato-onion hogao.
Shredded chicken and rice baked together in a sofrito-and-herb sauce until golden and bubbling.
Ripe tomatoes smell fragrant at the stem and give slightly to a gentle squeeze. For cooking out of season, good-quality tinned tomatoes often beat pale fresh ones.
Store at room temperature, never the fridge, which kills their flavour and texture. Score and blanch to slip off skins; salting slices draws out excess water for salads.
A low-calorie source of vitamin C, potassium and the antioxidant lycopene — which actually becomes more available when tomatoes are cooked.
Most of these 17 Colombian tomatoes recipes are ready in around 57 minutes from start to finish. The quickest, Ensalada Colombiana con Pimienta Negra (Black Pepper Chopped Salad), takes about 15 minutes, while the slower-cooked dishes run up to 130 minutes.
Across this collection they range from about 190 to 1280 kcal per serving, averaging 460 kcal — Ensalada Colombiana con Pimienta Negra (Black Pepper Chopped Salad) is the lightest option at 190 kcal.
Patacones (Colombian Fried Green Plantain Cakes) is a great place to start — it's rated easy and comes together in about 30 minutes. 47% of the recipes here are beginner-friendly.
In these recipes, tomatoes is most often paired with ground cumin, garlic, onion, fine sea salt, scallions and neutral oil. Colombian kitchens also lean on its own regional aromatics, fats and signature spice blends.
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