How to Make Cheese Pupusas with Curtido and Salsa



Test Cook Dan Souza makes host Julia Collin Davison tender cheese pupusas topped with a crunchy curtido and a bright salsa.

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40 Comments

  1. Will be saving this video to my library. My one and only attempt was a bean/cheese mixture and they were twice the size of the 4" ones! LOL…did I miss something with what they did with the vinegar mixture? Was it mixed up with the cabbage? Thanks ATK for the detailed (mostly) of how to make these great Pupusas and their condiments!

  2. They need to head to a pupuseria ran by someone from El Salvador. The curtido is left on the counter not put in the refrigerator and does not have cilantro/coriander. The sign of a good pupusa is being thin and using oil to help handle the masa to help it brown. I’m sure they tried to make it easy but easy doesn’t always mean good. I learned from a good friend from El Salvador and she would cringe if she saw this video. I’m going to try this but I don’t expect good results.

  3. One tip that I would add! A common way to make the cheese easier to work with and even meltier is to add crema (sour cream – preferably Salvadoran). Just enough that the filling has a slightly “pastey” consistency. Definitely recommend!

  4. if you want to get closer to the original besides the things he already mentioned on the video, really good pupusas try to push the limit with how much filling the masa can hold (cheese coming out of the pupusas and becoming crispy on top is sometimes salvadoreans favorite part so they dont have to look as perfect as they do in the video). The tomato sauce is typically way more liquid than chunky + I have never seen cilantro in curtido but if you like it as its on the video go ahead haha dont want to go full italian food critic. If you can get quesillo really go out of your way as its the star of the dish. If you feel adventurous, my favorite version of the dish is la revueltas that have pork and beans with the cheese and taste amazing.

  5. Wonderful fun seeing this made. Of course, only the corn, chile, and tomato were pre-Columbian. Cheese, cabbage, carrots, onion, and cilantro were all introduced by Europeans. But still fun to see how to make such an iconic food item. Love all your videos/recipes.

  6. I LOVE ATC. I credit them with getting me interested in cooking 20 yrs ago. but this recipe is just lazy. Didn't they bother going to a Salvadoran restaurant to see how pupusas are actually made? the curtido and salsa are so wrong it's offensive.

  7. I've always mixed the masa using my hands, so when he said "boiling water", my heart stopped for a moment. Then I realized, "Well, duh, he's gonna use a utensil." I gotta say, it looks way less fun and satisfying to form your pupusas this way, rather than the slap slap slap. Definitely easier though.

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