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Oaxacan grasshoppers toasted on a dry comal with sliced garlic, dried chile de arbol, and a hard squeeze of lime, the way they sell them by the kilo at the Central de Abastos and the 20 de Noviembre market.
This is Oaxaca's snack. Not Mexico City's. Not Puebla's. Oaxaca's. You will find chapulines at every market in the Valles Centrales, piled in terra-cotta bowls by the kilo, sorted by size, seasoned to each vendor's formula. The small ones, no bigger than a grain of rice, are the most prized for eating by the handful. The large ones go into tacos or tlayudas. The medium ones are what you want for this recipe: big enough to toast individually on a comal, small enough to eat without thinking about it.
The preparation is almost nothing. That is the point. Garlic, chile de arbol, salt, lime. A hot comal. Five minutes. The grasshoppers arrive already cleaned and sun-dried from the market vendor. Your job is to toast them until they crackle between your teeth and the garlic turns golden. If you overcook the garlic, it goes bitter. If you undercook the chapulines, they are chewy instead of crisp. The margin is small and you learn it by watching, not by reading.
I bought my first kilo of chapulines at the Central de Abastos in Oaxaca from a senora who had three sizes in three clay bowls and a look on her face that said she had been selling them since before I was born. She told me: "Los chiquitos para botanear, los grandes para la tlayuda." She was right. My mother never cooked chapulines. She was from Jalisco and Jalisco does not eat insects the way Oaxaca does. But she had a note in her notebook, written after a trip to Oaxaca in 1991: "Chapulines. Tostar con ajo. No te pases." Don't overdo it. That is all the instruction you need. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
Entomophagy in Mesoamerica predates agriculture itself, and the Zapotec and Mixtec peoples of Oaxaca's Central Valleys harvested chapulines (Sphenarium purpurascens) from wild grasses and cultivated fields for millennia before the Spanish arrival. The grasshoppers are gathered primarily during the rainy season from May through September, when alfalfa fields in the Valles Centrales produce the densest populations, and the harvesting remains a manual labor practice carried out largely by women and children in the early morning hours before the insects warm and scatter. Despite colonial-era suppression of insect consumption as 'uncivilized,' chapulines survived as a daily food in Oaxacan markets precisely because they were too embedded in the local economy and diet to eradicate, a resistance through the stomach that UNESCO's 2010 inscription of Traditional Mexican Cuisine acknowledged as part of Mexico's living culinary heritage.
Quantity
250 grams
Quantity
4
sliced thin
Quantity
2
crumbled
Quantity
1 tablespoon (about 1 lime)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
Quantity
1 tablespoon
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| cleaned dried chapulines (medium size) | 250 grams |
| garlic clovessliced thin | 4 |
| dried chile de arbolcrumbled | 2 |
| fresh lime juice | 1 tablespoon (about 1 lime) |
| sea salt, or sal de gusano if available | 1 teaspoon |
| vegetable oil or manteca de cerdo | 1 tablespoon |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| warm corn tortillas or tostadas (optional) | for serving |
Spread the dried chapulines on a sheet pan or wide plate. Pick through them and remove any stray legs, wings, or debris. If your chapulines came from a trusted Oaxacan vendor, they will be mostly clean. If you ordered them online, take your time with this step. You want uniform pieces, no clumps, no dirt, no plant matter. This takes two minutes and it matters.
Set a cast iron comal or heavy skillet over medium heat. Let it get hot for a full minute before you add anything. The surface should be hot enough that a drop of water sizzles and evaporates immediately. A cold start will make the chapulines sweat instead of toast, and you will end up with something chewy instead of crisp.
Add the oil to the hot comal. When it shimmers, lay the sliced garlic in a single layer. Cook for about 30 seconds, moving the slices with a wooden spoon, until the edges turn pale gold. Add the crumbled chile de arbol and stir for 10 seconds. The chile should darken one shade and release its heat into the oil. Do not walk away. Garlic goes from golden to burned in the time it takes to look at your phone.
Add the chapulines to the comal in a single even layer. Toss them with the garlic and chile using a wooden spoon or spatula. Toast for three to five minutes, stirring every thirty seconds, until the chapulines are dry, crisp, and make a faint crackling sound when you stir them. They will shrink slightly and darken from brown to a deeper reddish-brown. The kitchen will smell like toasted nuts and dried earth. That smell is how you know they are ready.
Remove the comal from the heat. Squeeze the lime juice directly over the hot chapulines and toss immediately. The lime will sizzle on contact and the acid will cling to the warm surface of each grasshopper. Sprinkle the salt over the top and toss one more time. If you have sal de gusano, use it here instead of plain salt. It adds a smoky, savory depth that belongs to this dish like the chapulines themselves belong to Oaxaca.
Transfer the chapulines to a clay bowl or a cazuelita and serve with lime wedges on the side. Eat them by the handful as a snack, pile them onto a tostada, or scatter them over a tlayuda with quesillo and black bean paste. They are best within the first hour while the crunch is still sharp. After that, the lime makes them soften. Asi se hace y punto.
1 serving (about 75g)
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