Sope facts for kids
Sopes with red salsa
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| Alternative names | pellizcada, garnacha |
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| Type | antojito |
| Place of origin |  Mexico |
| Main ingredients | corn dough, vegetables, meat, refried beans, cheese, lettuce, onions, red or green sauce (salsa) |
A sope is a yummy traditional Mexican dish. It's made from a fried corn dough base with tasty toppings. People in different parts of Mexico might call it picadita or pellizcada. This dish comes from central and southern Mexico. It's a type of antojito, which means a little craving or snack. A sope looks like a thick tortilla with lots of veggies and meat on top.
The corn dough base is fried and has pinched sides, like a little wall. This helps hold all the delicious toppings! These toppings usually include refried beans, crumbled cheese, fresh lettuce, chopped onions, and either red or green sauce. A dollop of sour cream often finishes it off. Sometimes, other ingredients like different kinds of meat are added to create new flavors.
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What are traditional sopes like?
Sopes are popular all over Mexico, and you can find thousands of different versions! Even though sopes are a Mexican dish, many countries in Central America have also started making them. They use slightly different ingredients, but they are very similar to Salvadoran enchiladas.
The pinched sides are a special part of a sope. However, some sopes are made flat, looking more like a thick tortilla or a tostada. Both tostadas and sopes are fried. But a tostada is thin and fried until it's super crunchy. A sope, on the other hand, is much thicker. It's only fried until the outside is cooked. This makes the sope soft and a little bendy. The thickness of the sope helps it hold all its toppings. Frying the outside also makes it stronger against the wet ingredients.
Popular sope variations
One of the most common types of sope has chicken on top. This is known as a sope de pollo. Sopes with beef are also very popular. These are usually a bit bigger than the chicken sopes.
In northern Mexico, sopes are often made without vegetables. Instead, they might have black beans, spicy salsa, and longaniza or chorizo sausage. In Acapulco and Guerrero, sopes are extra small. Because of their size, they are called sopecitos. They are often fried in the same oil used for seafood, which gives them a special taste. These sopecitos usually only have beans and salsa.
In Oaxaca, some sopes are made with chapulines (roasted grasshoppers) as a topping! Also, there's a huge dish in Oaxaca called tlayuda. It's like a giant sope or tostada.
Dishes similar to sopes
The sope has inspired many other traditional Mexican dishes. These dishes might look like sopes but are considered unique.
Huarache: The big sope cousin
The huarache is a very common dish that's made almost the same way as a sope. However, a huarache is usually two or three times bigger than a sope. It also has a special long, oval shape. Huaraches are often topped with ribs, chicken, or beefsteak. The name huarache comes from the shape of the corn dough. It looks like popular sandals. Toppings for the huarache include beans, cheese, lettuce, sour cream, ground beef, and salsa.
Tlacoyo: The filled snack
The tlacoyo is a different traditional Mexican dish. It shouldn't be confused with a sope. A tlacoyo is an oval-shaped cake made of corn dough. It's fried or toasted and is much thicker because it's filled with beans or cheese.
Because it's similar in shape to a huarache (but smaller), and made of the same corn dough as a sope, street vendors sometimes add toppings to it. This makes it an alternative to a sope. However, a traditional tlacoyo is usually eaten without any toppings.
Garnacha: Small and simple
Garnachas are small corn tortillas that are fried. They are topped with shredded meat, crumbled dried cheese, and salsa. Sometimes, garnachas might only have chopped onion and salsa. They look similar to sopes and are a main specialty from Guatemala.
Memela: Oaxacan sopes
Oaxacan memelas are basically the same as sopes found in other parts of Mexico. They just have different toppings! Memelas are corn dough cakes topped with beans, salsa, shredded cabbage, mole negro (a dark sauce), guacamole, and cheese. In Puebla, memelas are often served with two sauces: red sauce on one side and green sauce on the other. This is called estilo bandera (flag style). Instead of meat, memelas in Puebla are served with sour cream, crumbled cheese, and diced onions on top of the red and green sauces.
Chalupa: The boat-shaped dish
A chalupa is a type of tostada platter in Mexican cuisine. It's not a sope, but it's made in a similar way. It's a special dish from south-central Mexico, like the states of Puebla, Guerrero, and Oaxaca. To make it, a thin layer of corn dough is pressed around a small mold and deep-fried. This creates a crispy, shallow corn cup. It's then filled with things like shredded chicken, pork, chopped onion, chipotle pepper, red salsa, and green salsa.
The chalupa is usually longer than a sope. It looks like the canoe-like boat it's named after. Smaller versions, called chalupitas, are also available.
Salbutes and panuchos: Yucatecan delights
Food from the Yucatán region of Mexico is quite unique. It mixes local Mayan culture with some unusual European cuisine influences.
Salbutes and panuchos are the Yucatecan versions of the sope. Salbutes are soft, cooked tortillas topped with lettuce, tomato, turkey, and avocado. Panuchos are tortillas that are partly fried like a sope base. They are filled with black beans and topped with turkey or chicken, lettuce, avocado, and pickled onions. Very spicy Habanero chiles often come with these dishes, along with fresh limes or lime juice.
