Encebollado, Ecuador's popular fish soup: ingredients and method

On 1 July 2026 the lifestyle section of Jagonews24 published a recipe for encebollado, one of Ecuador's most popular traditional dishes. The paper noted that the Latin American country is known to football fans but also has a rich food culture. Encebollado is a soup of fish, onion, tomato, spices and fragrant herbs, usually served piping hot. Below are the recipe's ingredients and steps, with some background on the dish.

The Spanish name means roughly "dressed in onions". Wikipedia describes encebollado as an Ecuadorian fish stew regarded as the national dish. It is made with albacore, tuna or bonito, boiled cassava (known locally as yuca), rings of red onion cured in lime juice, tomato, pepper and coriander leaves. It is eaten across Ecuador but is most popular on the coast, where restaurants that serve nothing else open in the early morning. People eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

In July 2023 the Ecuadorian daily Expreso quoted Ángel Emilio Hidalgo, a cultural historian at the Universidad de las Artes, as saying the dish emerged in the 1940s and 1950s from a fusion of two dishes, picante de pescado and ceviche en balde, and became popular among dock workers in the port of Guayaquil. The same report said the food guide TasteAtlas had rated encebollado 4.5 out of 5 and ranked it the second-best fish soup in the world. Primicias reported that on 25 July 2024, at celebrations of the 489th anniversary of Guayaquil's founding, Ecuador's Ministry of Culture and Heritage declared Guayaquil's encebollado part of the country's intangible cultural heritage.

The Jagonews24 recipe uses:

• Water: 8 cups
• Tuna: cleaned and cut into pieces
• Cassava (yuca): cut into pieces
• Onion: some for the broth, some thinly sliced for serving
• Tomato
• Bell pepper
• Garlic
• Coriander leaves
• Ground cumin
• Achiote or paprika
• Lemon juice
• Salt to taste

A recipe printed by the Ecuadorian daily Extra in July 2023 uses much the same: one pound of albacore, two cups of cooked yuca, one small green pepper, two garlic cloves, two red onions, two tomatoes, coriander leaves and stems, dried chilli, one teaspoon of ground cumin and salt.

• Cook the fish: put 8 cups of water in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion, tomato, bell pepper, garlic, coriander leaves, ground cumin, achiote or paprika, and salt. When it comes to a good boil, add the cleaned tuna and cook for about 15 to 20 minutes.
• Set the fish aside: lift the cooked fish carefully into a bowl and flake it lightly with a fork.
• Cook the cassava: add the cassava pieces to the same hot broth and boil for another 10 to 15 minutes until soft, then lift them out and set aside.
• Thicken the broth: let the vegetables and broth cool a little, blend them into a smooth purée, strain through a sieve and return to the pot to heat.
• Cure the onion: in a separate bowl mix thinly sliced onion, lemon juice and salt and leave for 5 to 10 minutes.
• Serve: put the cassava and flaked tuna in a large bowl and pour the hot, thick broth over them. Top with the cured onion and coriander leaves.

A recipe published by Univision follows the same pattern: the fish is lifted out, the cooked tomatoes are blended with the cooking liquid to thicken the broth, and red onion cured separately in lemon juice and salt goes on top.

In Ecuador encebollado usually comes with chifles (thin fried slices of green plantain), bread and lime. Expreso and Extra note that some people eat it with rice, popcorn (canguil) or toasted corn. Primicias adds that there is also a mixed version, encebollado mixto, with shellfish, crab and shrimp.

Photo: Paulakindsvater / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Expreso (Ecuador), Extra (Ecuador), Primicias, Univision, Wikipedia