Paraguay’s food revolves around three ingredients: corn, cassava, and cheese. These staples, rooted in a fusion of indigenous Guaraní cooking and Spanish colonial ingredients, show up in nearly every meal. The cuisine is hearty, starch-heavy, and built around communal eating. Its flagship dish, a chicken dumpling soup called Vorí Vorí, was recently rated the number one dish in the world at the TasteAtlas Awards 2025/26.
How Guaraní and Spanish Cooking Merged
Before Spanish colonists arrived, the Guaraní and Cario peoples living in what is now Paraguay ate a diet of wild game, cornbread, and starch cooked with animal fat. They had no cattle, no dairy, and no eggs. That changed in 1537 with the founding of Asunción, and by 1556, cattle had been introduced to the region. The collision of these two food traditions created something new: Guaraní staples like corn, cassava, pumpkin, and sweet potato merged with Spanish ingredients like beef, milk, eggs, and cheese. Nearly every dish Paraguay is known for today traces back to that mix.
Mandioca: The Real National Staple
Cassava, called mandioca in Paraguay, is less a side dish and more a dietary constant. Rural Paraguayans eat it at least twice a day, typically at lunch and again at dinner with leftovers. Eating it three or more times a day as a snack between meals is common. It’s most often served boiled and whole, placed on the table the way bread appears in other cultures. But it also gets fried with vegetables and beef in a dish called mandioca chyryry, charred on coals as a snack, or simply dipped in honey.
Sopa Paraguaya
Despite the name, Sopa Paraguaya is not a soup at all. It’s a dense, moist corn cake, sometimes called the only solid “soup” in the world. The batter combines cornmeal, milk, eggs, onions, cheese, and butter, then gets baked until it sits somewhere between a casserole and cornbread. It doesn’t rise much. The result is savory, rich, and cheesy, with a texture that holds together in thick slices. Sopa Paraguaya shows up at nearly every major gathering, from Sunday lunches to Christmas dinner.
Chipa: Paraguay’s Iconic Street Food
Chipa is a small, chewy bread made from cassava flour (not wheat or corn), mixed with lard, eggs, milk, anise, salt, and sometimes a hard, salty Paraguayan farmer’s cheese. The dough gets kneaded until dry and lumpy, then shaped by hand and baked. The anise gives it a subtle, slightly sweet fragrance that sets it apart from other South American breads. You’ll find chipa sold from baskets at bus stops, on highways, and at market stalls across the country, especially during Easter week when production peaks.
Several variations exist. Chipa guazú swaps cassava flour for fresh corn kernels, making it softer and more casserole-like. It’s one of the essential dishes at Christmas dinner. Chipa pirú is a thinner, crispier version shaped into sticks.
Vorí Vorí
Vorí Vorí is a golden chicken soup loaded with small dumplings made from cornflour, farmer’s cheese, and broth. The dumplings are rolled by hand, dropped into a simmering chicken broth, and cooked until they absorb the surrounding liquid while keeping a soft, slightly dense center. The cheese melts into the cornflour as the dumplings cook, giving them a richness that plain flour dumplings can’t match. It’s comfort food in the truest sense, and its selection as the top-rated dish worldwide at the TasteAtlas Awards brought it international attention for the first time.
Mbejú: The Grain-Free Flatbread
Mbejú is a thin, crispy flatbread made entirely from cassava flour, butter, and cheese, with no grain flour at all. You combine the dry ingredients by rubbing them between your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, then press it into a hot pan about a quarter-inch deep. It cooks covered for about three minutes per side until a golden crust forms. The finished flatbread is crispy on the outside, slightly gooey with melted cheese on the inside. It’s traditionally eaten at breakfast or as an afternoon snack with coffee or cocido (a Paraguayan tea made with burnt sugar).
The Sunday Asado
Asado, the slow-cooked barbecue found across South America, occupies a near-sacred place in Paraguayan weekly life. On almost any Sunday, in homes, bars, and restaurants across every social class, you can expect to find beef grilling over charcoal on a parrilla. But asado in Paraguay is less about the food and more about the ritual. You’re expected to arrive at least two hours before the meat is ready. Showing up when the food is done is considered deeply rude. The point is to watch the meat get seasoned and placed on the grill, to drink beer or wine depending on the weather, to play games, and to talk.
The spread typically goes well beyond a single steak. Chorizo parrillero (grilled sausages) and morcilla (blood sausage) cook alongside the beef. Sweetbreads are considered the star among the organ meats. Boiled mandioca is always on the table. And the usual accompaniments include Sopa Paraguaya and various salads.
Christmas Dinner Under Summer Heat
Christmas in Paraguay falls in the middle of summer, which shapes the menu. The centerpiece is still asado, traditionally managed by the fathers and grandfathers, while women prepare salads, Sopa Paraguaya, and chipa guazú. A few dishes appear at Christmas that Paraguayans rarely eat the rest of the year. Vitel toné, a cold sliced meat in tuna sauce originally brought to the region by Italian immigrants through Argentina, is one. Lengua a la vinagreta, cold tongue in a vinaigrette dressing, is another. Russian salad (a potato-based salad with peas, carrots, and mayonnaise) rounds out the cold dishes. Sweet Christmas bread filled with fruit or chocolate is standard, along with plum cake that shows up throughout December.
Paraguayan Sweets
Dulce de mamón is one of Paraguay’s most traditional desserts. Papaya gets boiled slowly in water and sugar until it becomes soft and syrupy. Cloves, orange juice, or lemon zest are common additions that cut through the sweetness. The result is a glossy, amber-colored preserve that’s served on its own or alongside fresh cheese. Like much of Paraguayan cooking, it’s simple in concept but relies on patience, with the long, slow cooking doing most of the work.