Chef Lupita
Agua de Chaya con Limón
Yucatán's everyday tonic of boiled chaya leaves blended with lima agria, sugar, and ice. The bright green jarra that sits on every Peninsula table from Mérida to Valladolid.
Culinary Explorer
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Horchata Yucateca de Almendras
Created by
Yucatán's almond-rich horchata, rice and almonds soaked overnight, blended with true canela, sweetened with milk and evaporated milk, and poured over crushed ice in the afternoon heat of Mérida.
Beverages
Mexican
Weeknight
Outdoor Dining
Comfort Food
20 min
Active Time
0 min cook•8 hr 20 min total
Yield6 to 8 servings (about 2 quarts)
This is the Yucatán's horchata, not the central Mexican one. The difference is the almonds.
The horchata you find in Ciudad de México is rice and canela and water and sugar. Clean, simple, refreshing. The horchata you find in Mérida and across the Yucatán peninsula adds whole almonds, soaked overnight alongside the rice, and finishes with milk and evaporated milk. The result is rounder, creamier, denser, the kind of drink that sits next to a plate of cochinita pibil and holds its own against the achiote and the habanero. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and the Yucatán has always cooked richer than the rest of the country.
The almonds came with the Spanish, by way of the Levantine and Moorish tradition that brought the word horchata itself from the Latin hordeata, a barley drink the Arabs adapted with chufa and almonds in Valencia. The Yucatán, isolated from central Mexico for centuries by jungle and water, kept a closer trade relationship with Cuba and Europe than with Puebla or Oaxaca. The almonds stayed in the recipe. The peninsula's heat made the dairy version make sense. A horchata that drinks like cold cream is exactly what you want when the afternoon temperature hits 95 degrees in Mérida.
Do not rush the soak. Do not skip the almond. Do not use ground cassia and call it canela. The whole drink turns on three or four small decisions, and Yucatecan cooks have been making them correctly for four hundred years. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Horchata traces back to the Latin 'hordeata,' a barley-based drink consumed in the Roman Mediterranean, which was reinterpreted in Moorish Valencia using the chufa tuber and later, in other regions of Spain, using almonds. Spanish colonists brought the almond version to the Yucatán in the 16th century, where it merged with the local practice of grinding soaked rice into beverages, producing the peninsula's distinctive almond-rich variant. The Yucatán's relative isolation from central Mexico until the railroad reached Mérida in the late 19th century preserved its European-influenced recipes intact, which is why Yucatecan horchata, like its cochinita pibil seasoned with Spanish-introduced bitter orange, retains colonial techniques that the rest of Mexico modified or abandoned.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
long-grain white rice
Quantity
1 cup
whole raw almonds, skin on
Quantity
1 cup
canela (Mexican cinnamon, true Ceylon)
Quantity
1 stick (4 inches)
water
Quantity
6 cups, plus more for soaking
whole milk
Quantity
1 cup
cold
evaporated milk
Quantity
1 (12-ounce) can
granulated sugar
Quantity
3/4 cup, plus more to taste
Mexican vanilla extract
Quantity
1 tablespoon
fine sea salt
Quantity
pinch
crushed ice
Quantity
for serving
ground canela (optional)
Quantity
for dusting
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| long-grain white rice | 1 cup |
| whole raw almonds, skin on | 1 cup |
| canela (Mexican cinnamon, true Ceylon) | 1 stick (4 inches) |
| water | 6 cups, plus more for soaking |
| whole milkcold | 1 cup |
| evaporated milk | 1 (12-ounce) can |
| granulated sugar | 3/4 cup, plus more to taste |
| Mexican vanilla extract | 1 tablespoon |
| fine sea salt | pinch |
| crushed ice | for serving |
| ground canela (optional) | for dusting |
Equipment Needed
- •Large mixing bowl for the overnight soak
- •High-powered blender
- •Fine-mesh sieve
- •Cheesecloth or a clean thin kitchen towel
- •Large glass pitcher or vitrolero with a lid
- •Long bar spoon for stirring at the table
Instructions
- 1
Soak rice, almonds, and canela
Combine the rice, almonds, and the broken stick of canela in a large bowl. Cover with 4 cups of room-temperature water. Cover the bowl and leave on the counter overnight, at least 8 hours. This is not a step you skip. The rice needs to soften and the almonds need to swell so the blender can extract the starches and oils that make this horchata creamy. No me vengas con atajos. A hot-water shortcut gives you thin, chalky horchata.
Use true canela, the soft bark you can crumble between your fingers. The hard cassia stick sold as cinnamon in most American supermarkets is the wrong tree and tastes harsh. - 2
Blend in batches
Pour the soaked mixture, water and all, into the blender along with another 2 cups of fresh water. If your blender is small, work in two batches. Blend on the highest setting for a full 3 minutes. Not 30 seconds. Three minutes. You want the rice broken down into a fine milky pulp and the almonds turned to a smooth paste. The mixture will look pale beige and slightly thickened.
- 3
Steep the pulp
Pour the blended mixture into a large pitcher or bowl. Let it sit on the counter for 1 hour. This rest is where the flavor develops. The rice starch and almond oil continue to leach into the water, and the canela perfumes the whole batch. Yucatecan cooks call this the descanso. It is the difference between horchata that tastes of canela and horchata that tastes of raw rice.
- 4
Strain twice
Set a fine-mesh sieve over a clean pitcher and line it with a double layer of cheesecloth or a clean kitchen towel. Pour the mixture through, then gather the cloth and squeeze hard to extract every drop of liquid. Discard the spent pulp. Now strain the liquid one more time through the sieve alone, to catch any last grit. You should have a smooth, opaque, pale beige liquid.
The first strain should leave the cloth full of damp almond and rice meal. Squeeze it like you mean it. That is where the body of the horchata lives. - 5
Sweeten and finish
Whisk in the remaining 2 cups of water, the cold whole milk, the evaporated milk, the sugar, the vanilla, and the pinch of salt. Whisk until the sugar dissolves completely. Taste it. The horchata yucateca is rounder and richer than the central Mexican version, the dairy is what makes it. If your almonds were small or the sugar in your country runs less sweet, adjust. The drink should be cold-cream sweet but not cloying.
- 6
Chill thoroughly
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, ideally 4. Horchata served lukewarm is a disappointment. It needs to be cold enough that the glass sweats the moment it leaves the refrigerator. Stir well before serving, because the rice starch will settle on the bottom of the pitcher. Así se hace y punto.
- 7
Serve over crushed ice
Fill tall glasses with crushed ice, not cubes. Crushed ice melts faster into the horchata and keeps every sip cold to the bottom of the glass. Pour the horchata over the top and dust the surface with ground canela. In Mérida this is poured from a tall glass vitrolero with a lid and a ladle, and served with a long spoon so the drinker can stir it as the ice melts. Drink it slowly in the afternoon heat. That is the Yucatecan way.
Chef Tips
- •Buy true canela at a Mexican grocery or spice shop. It comes in long, soft, papery sticks you can crack with your fingers. The hard, dense cinnamon sticks at most supermarkets are cassia from China or Vietnam, a different tree entirely, and they give the horchata a harsh, almost medicinal note. If you cannot find canela, leave the cinnamon out before you use the wrong one.
- •Skin-on almonds are not a mistake. The skins add color and a faint tannic depth that blanched almonds lack. The cheesecloth catches the skin fragments at the end, so you only get the flavor and none of the grit.
- •If you want to make this without dairy, leave out the milk and evaporated milk and add another half cup of sugar and a quarter cup of sweetened condensed coconut milk. It is a compromise, not the original, but it works for guests who cannot have dairy. Yucatecan horchata is traditionally made with cow's milk and that is the version a señora in Mérida will pour you.
Advance Preparation
- •The soak is the overnight part. Start the rice, almonds, and canela in water the night before you plan to serve.
- •Finished horchata keeps in the refrigerator for 3 days. The rice starch settles, so stir or shake hard before pouring each time.
- •Do not freeze it. The dairy separates and the texture turns grainy. Make a fresh batch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 270g)
Calories
260 calories
Total Fat
9 g
Saturated Fat
3 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
6 g
Cholesterol
19 mg
Sodium
75 mg
Total Carbohydrates
36 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
28 g
Protein
7 g
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