8 Essential Foods to Try in Oaxaca, Mexico
Eating in Oaxaca is less about hitting the most popular restaurants than it is about trying the dishes that place is known for — whether it’s at a five-star restaurant or your friend’s cousin’s abuela’s kitchen. While this is by no means an exhaustive list of Oaxacan foods to try, these eight iconic dishes are a good place to start while eating your way through Mexico’s food capital.
Whether it’s on the street, in a market, or at a five-star restaurant, be sure to try these Oaxacan foods.
1. Chocolate
Where to try: With breakfast at Fonda Florecita in El Mercado de la Merced.
Cacao grows in the region and you’ll find it in a lot of drinks. Try it as a chocolate con leche (chocolate with milk), champurrado, which combines two of Oaxaca’s food staples, chocolate and masa (corn), or as a cold, pre-hispanic beverage called tejate, a mixture of mamey seeds, corn, cacao, and water.
2. Mezcal
Where to try: As a cocktail at Casa Oaxaca’s upscale bar.
Like cacao, agave is another Oaxacan crop and the state is the largest mezcal producing region in Mexico. While there, explore different types of mezcal with a tasting, or order your favorite cocktail with mezcal instead of tequila.
3. Empanadas con mole amarillo or flor de calabaza
Where to try: Find a new favorite spot at El Mercado de la Merced.
Similar to what we’d call a quesadilla, Oaxacan empanadas combine some of the most iconic ingredients of the region: moles, a traditional sauce, queso Oaxaca or quesillo, a semi-hard cheese with a texture similar to mozzarella, and flor de calabaza, delicate and fragrant zucchini flowers. Try one filled with mole amarillo (yellow mole) or stuffed with cheese and flor de calabaza.
If you’re more interested in eating cheese than zucchini flowers, look for queso en salsa — a grilled block of cheese in a thin tomatoey sauce.
4. Tostada de salchicha
Where to try: In the mercados or find an upscale version La Olla.
Don’t be scared off by the bright pink color of salchicha, or beef sausage, on your tostada. It’s meant to be that way in this Oaxacan take on a tostada.
5. Tlyauda
Where to try: In the mercados, or chow down at Libres Tlayudas.
Oaxaca’s answer to a flatbread, tlyaudas are a tasty street snack topped with savory toppings like black beans, a Oaxacan favorite, and cheese. Tasajo, a thinly sliced cut of wood-cooked beef similar to jerky, is another common topping. You’ll find these throughout town from a street vendors and in markets.
6. Corn in all its forms: chilaquiles, memelas, entomatadas, tetelas, tamales
Where to try: Eat all the corn at breakfast or lunch at Itanoni, or brunch chilaquiles at Casa Vertiz.
Tortillas form the base of just about every Oaxacan meal and you’ll find them in many forms and from various types of corn (blue, yellow, white — to name a few) like:
Breakfast chilaquiles, or crispy strips of tortilla under a red or green salsa, cream, and onion.
Memelas, or crispy masa cakes topped with beans, cheese, or choripapa.
Chicken stuffed tamal oaxaqueño.
Tetelas, or tortilla triangles stuffed with savory ingredients.
Entomatadas, similar to an enchilada, these rolled corn tortillas are topped with a tomato sauce.
7. Seven (scratch that) eight moles
Where to try: At La Teca for a dinner that feels like you’re at your grandma’s house, or up-leveled at Pitiona.
Perhaps Oaxaca’s most iconic foods, a dish topped with one of its eight — yes, eight — moles is a must for any food-loving travelers in the region. Complex, chocolately mole negro. Simple, curry-like mole amarillo. The main seven moles of Oaxaca are a variety of flavors.
If you can, seek out Oaxaca’s more obscure mole, Mole Blanco, which is usually prepared around Easter or Christmas.
8. Chapulines (grasshoppers)
Where to try: As a taco or snack at Mercado Benito Juárez, or with guacamole at La Olla.
A dish for the more adventurous, Chapulines are fried grasshoppers, which you can buy by the bag in Oaxacan markets and eat like popcorn. Still a little squeamish about the idea? Order chips and guacamole with a bit of chapuline salt sprinkled on top.
DIY Oaxaca Food Tour and Map
Take yourself on a DIY food tour of Oaxaca with this downloadable guide, complete with a Google Map list with all of our favorite spots that you can add to your phone.
Simply download, tap, and hit “follow” to have all the best Oaxacan eateries at your fingertips, so you can easily find them as you explore Oaxaca.
