Cuban Island Spice

Use Cuban spices to season your meat, seafood, and vegetables. Sprinkle on scrambled eggs or mix into omelets. Add to tamales, rice, and beans. Use in authentic Cuban recipes.

Mike's Cuban Open-Faced Egg Sandwich — Diner Style:

For all the remarkable food in this world, a diner breakfast still hits home for me. When I was a kid, time with my grandpa often meant a motorcycle ride to a tucked-away truck stop on the south side of Chicago. One row of stools. A griddle cook doubling as the neighborhood news source. Eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, toast, and those little packets of jelly. My grandpa was in his element. Some of that stuck with me.

These days, Janet bakes sourdough almost every week. She leans toward avocado toast (always better with a finishing sprinkle of Cuban). I go for a diner-style open-faced egg sandwich for a quick weeknight dinner. Toasted sourdough, a layer of raspberry preserves, thin for her, thick for me, topped with a butter-fried egg seasoned generously with Cuban Island Spice, plus whatever cheese we have on hand. Don’t knock it until you try it.

This is easily the seasoning we reach for the most when cooking at home. We sprinkle it on eggs, mix it into guacamole, and rub it on grilled chicken thighs. Honestly, some weeks the jar doesn’t even make it back into the spice drawer before it’s completely empty.

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This is the seasoning I reach for most in my everyday cooking at home. Not because I’m making traditional Cuban food every day, but because it works with so many meals. Even though we don’t call it an all-purpose blend, that’s how I tend to use it. When we were creating this seasoning, we drew inspiration from sofrito, the cooking base brought from Spanish to the Caribbean and adapted uniquely on each island. Cuban sofrito leans on tomato and bell peper, so I recreated those flavors in dry form, and added cumin seeds for a roasty, citrus-tinged depth. To bring everything together, I blended it with a touch of traditional adobo seasoning. The result is a colorful, balanced blend that adds warmth and flavor to just about anything. Using Cuban Island Spice at home: Try it on eggs, mixed into guacamole, or rubbed on grilled pork chips. Use a few tablespoons to season classic Cuban dishes like lechón asado, arroz congrí, or ropa vieja.

Cuba is comprised of diverse cultural influences including Spanish, Portuguese, French, West African, and Asian. In creating a seasoning to represent this melting pot, we married two critical flavoring elements of Cuban cuisine: adobo and sofrito. The result is a bright and wonderful seasoning unlike anything else we have created.

Cuban Island Spice Q&A

What are Cuban spices?

Cuban spices typically consist of garlic, onion, bell pepper, cumin, oregano, some sort of citrus element and salt and pepper.

What are traditional Cuban flavors?

Traditionally, Cuban flavors include citrusy flavors like lemon, lime or orange, along with aromatic flavors like garlic and onion. Sofrito, commonly used in Cuban cooking, includes extra flavors from tomatoes and chile peppers.

Are Cuban spices spicy?

Not usually; Cuban spices and Cuban food do not tend to be typically spicy or have any sort of heat level.