Check out this easy recipe for a game day snack: How to make Basque nachos
This tasty potato, ham and cheese side dish, loosely inspired by northern Spanish cuisine, is actually an American invention.
Popular cuisine is constantly evolving, changing and adapting to new tastes and trends, and sometimes what might seem like a time-honored tradition is actually relatively new, a reinvention.
That’s definitely the case with “Basque Nachos” - a Spanish-inspired snack that has gone viral in the United States and across TikTok.
@food52 Have you heard of Basque nachos? They're Isabelle's go-to hosting hack combines Manchego, Ibérico ham, and brined peppers for the ultimate savory, snackable bite. One tray and you’re basically in Spain. For the recipe head to the link in our bio #f52community
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Spanish flavors in NYC
It’s a simple side dish, the perfect accompaniment while you’re relaxing with an ice cool beer or glass of wine. TikTok creators point to Spanish restaurant Ernesto’s in New York City as the main source of the inspiration for Basque Nachos. Its menu features “home-made potato chips with Cinco Jotas-branded Iberian cured ham” but the viral snack version is much less sophisticated and cheaper.
All you need to create your very own Basque Nachos is a bag of plain, lightly salted potato chips which is then topped with slices of cured serrano ham, cubes of manchego cheese, and pickled garnishes (piparras, guindillas, pepinos, olives, picked onions). This heady mix of classic Spanish ingredients has become a social media sensation.
Make your own Basque Nachos
Ingredients:
- One bag of salted potato chips
- A few slices of cured Iberian ham (jamón serrano)
- Manchego or other cured cheese
- Pickled garnishes: olives, piparras, gherkins, sometimes anchovies
Why you won’t find Basque Nachos anywhere in Spain
The Basque Country is noted for it’s world class cuisine — the Basques take their food very seriously, and always have. And while cured ham (jamón serrano) and cheese are culinary staples that you will everywhere in Spain, you won’t find Basque Nachos in Bilbao, San Sebastián or anywhere else in the Basque region - expect some confused look if you ask anyone. Nobody recognizes this dish as their own. And besides, Manchego cheese is from La Mancha, in the south, far from the northern coast.
So Basque Nachos is simply an invention for the international market. Nobody in Spain or the Basque Country knows it exists, although you may get almost any of its ingredients on a small plate as an aperitivo when ordering a drink at a bar (cheese, ham or potato chips) - but separately, never together.
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