Huacatay – Add some serious flavor with Black Mint

Huacatay is a popular herb used in Peruvian dishes, -mostly in the Andes-, that imparts its characteristic flavor to many soups and stews. It’s hard to think of the delicious and nutritious Locro, without the aroma of this herb, for example; and you can enhance a simple Ají Sauce with some chopped huacatay leaves.

Of the mint family, huacatay is also called «black mint», and just like mint, it has a very pungent aroma and flavor, so it´s wise to use sparingly. A few leaves go a long way.

It’s not easy to find fresh huacatay leaves outside of Peru, but you can easily buy it in paste, and use this instead to give the particular huacatay taste to the dish you’re preparing. Remember that it should give a nice and subtle flavor to the dish, not overpower it, so use just a little and increase according to your taste.

Even though it is usually added to savory dishes, I recently had a very daring camu camu juice with huacatay leaves in it. I thought I was not going to like it but it was just the opposite, I loved it!


Comentarios

  1. I’m from Lima Peru and Lived in Tampa Florida for many many years, I loved gardening, the other day watering my plants I found a plant never see before so I sent a picture to my friend and garden expert and his responde to me saying that is huacatay I don’t know how the seed got to my pots I was so happy because I remember using this herb when I lived in Lima. Thank you for the info you posted in the Internet about huacatay very helpful …..

  2. I grew huacatay in my garden this year, but I am unable to find a recipe to make the paste. Do you have one that you could share?
    Thank you!

  3. I Love Huacatay. I bought some seeds and planted them where I live in San Francisco, and they took off. It’s about 3-4 feet in height and is growing FAST. I have so much and this week I will be trying to make an Authentic Pollo A La Brasa. I found some seeds online and said heck, I’ll try growing it. It’s doing really good and I LOVE the Smell in the Garden…

  4. Margarita, same happened to me. After it sprouted in a pot I had to do a lot of detective work to eventually discover it was a Huacatay. Am delighted any will explore uses for the black mint!

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