Forget French fries. For us Dominicans, yuca frita is our groove. You'll love these yuca fries, perfectly salted and golden, crispy on the outside, creamy and soft inside. It can be served as a side dish and – paired with one of our sauce choices – as a fabulous snack or finger food.
Why we ❤️ it
Yuca, also commonly known as cassava, is prepared in a variety of ways throughout the world. Yuca is our most ancient ingredient consumed here since pre-Columbian times, and one of our favorite ways to serve it is as yuca frita (fried cassava), perfect as a side dish to grilled meats, beach food, or as an appetizer with a dip.
You'll be surprised just how easy it is to fry yuca, and this recipe for yuca frita ingredient list is quite short: just three.
Serving suggestions
As an appetizer, you can serve cassava fries with our popular Mayo-ketchup sauce, our favorite Avocado and sour cream dip, Vegan avocado mayonnaise, Wasakaka sauce, garlic aioli, or a Cilantro garlic sauce from this recipe. You can also serve it alongside some hot sauce if you like that.
Fried yuca also makes a great side dish to our parrillada dishes, like Chicken pinchos, or this amazing Longaniza hamburger, or dipped in ketchup with a plate of Pica pollo fried chicken.
Cassava root and casava fries.
Top tips
- The thinner you cut the yuca sticks, the crispier the yuca fries will be at the end, but some people do like to cut them into thick pieces.
- I like the flavor better after soaking in salt water, and I find that it improves the texture, but you can skip it if you're short on time.
- Peeling yuca is quite easy; just discard the ends of the yuca root, and with a sharp knife, cut the thick pink and withe skin below the waxy outer skin, and peel it off. You can also check out our how to peel yuca tutorial with a video.
- For extra flavor, you can sprinkle it with chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, or paprika, though these are not traditional ways of serving it.
About this recipe
These simple fritters are usually found in frituras, the humble neighborhood food stands, served as side dishes but also as appetizers in fancier restaurants. You can also serve them to accompany your meat dishes.
Does your yuca frita ingredients vary? Do you have any tricks to share? Please let me know in the comments!
Video
Recipe
This awesome free recipe contains Amazon affiliate links, we receive a small commission from any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. Thanks!
Yuca Frita [Recipe + Video] Yuca Fries or Cassava Fries
Ingredients
- 1 pound yuca (cassava), (yuca), peeled
- 1 teaspoon salt, (plus coarse salt to sprinkle later)
- 3 cups oil for frying, (peanut, or corn or canola oil)
Instructions
Cutting the yca
Cut the yuca into French-fries-sized sticks.
Soak
- Place the yuca in a large bowl, and pour enough water to cover it (about 1½ quarts of water [1.5 liters]). Add the 2 teaspoons of salt. Stir to dissolve the salt, and let it rest for half an hour. Drain the water. Pat the yuca dry with a paper towel.
Fry
- To fry the yuca, heat the oil over medium-high heat in a small pan or saucepan (so there's enough oil to deep-fry the yuca). Fry the yuca sticks in small batches until they turn golden brown (be careful with splatters). Rest on a paper towel to absorb excess oil.
Serve
- Sprinkle with salt, and serve right away.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is calculated automatically based on ingredients listed. Please consult your doctor if you need precise nutrition information.
What's yuca?
Yuca, a starchy root vegetable native to South America and very popular in the Caribbean and Central America. It was introduced to our island by the native Taino people and is a naturally gluten-free tuber used in as many ways as potatoes are used in other cuisines.
Cassava tolerates poor soil and drought fairly well, which makes it an ideal crop for resource-poor populations. It is very rich in carbohydrates but poor in protein. The bitter variety of cassava is fairly toxic when not prepared correctly. But fear not, this variety is rarely available commercially nowadays.
Good cassava once cooked is very tender, with a rich buttery taste. It can be served for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and goes well with nearly any dish in our cuisine. You can boil fresh yuca, fry it, make it into casseroles, make it into empanadas, and much more. We have many recipes for you to try yuca and the complete guide to cooking this noble root.
Yuca has some good nutritional properties. "A cup of raw yuca has 558 milligrams of potassium, providing 16% to 21% of the adequate intake level for most adults.[source]"
History
Yuca is probably the most important ingredient in our kitchen bequeathed to us by our pre-Columbian ancestors. It is our luck that these roots, which grow easily on our island, have remained an important part of our culinary culture.
Frying, however, came with the Spaniards, so yuca was not consumed this way by the Tainos.
FAQs
Yuca fries are made of cassava root or manioc, known in Spanish as yuca.
Yuca frita almost certainly originated in the Spanish Caribbean. Spaniards first encountered yuca on the island of Hispaniola (current Dominican Republic and Haiti), but frying yuca was only possible after the Spaniards introduced oil and lard to the local diet.
Yes, you can fry frozen yuca once thawed.
Yuca came from the South American mainland and was brought to the Caribbean by the Arawak people, who spread into the islands from what's now Venezuela.
Published Dec 21, 2007, revised
