A spread from the parrilla. Eleven dishes that show up at every asado, empanadas at the centre.
Argentinian food is more than empanadas. It's a cuisine built on Italian, Spanish, and indigenous traditions, eaten slowly, almost always with wine. Here are 25 dishes that show up next to the empanadas.
This is Pedro, writing from Argentum Empanadas in Bondi Beach. We make Argentinian empanadas for a living, but the empanada is one dish on a very long table. If you've ever sat through a proper Sunday asado in Argentina, you know it: the meat keeps coming, the wine keeps pouring, the salads pass around, and three hours in someone brings out the alfajores. That's the cuisine. Empanadas are the appetiser.
So this post is about the other 25. The dishes I grew up with, that visiting friends always end up asking about, and that most people in Sydney have never had. Where a recipe exists on our site, you'll find a link. Where you can buy or eat the dish in Sydney, that's linked too. For the empanadas themselves, we've covered them in depth elsewhere.
Quick context. Argentinian cuisine sits on four pillars: asado (slow-grilled beef over wood), empanadas (filled pastries, baked), dulce de leche (caramelised milk, in everything sweet), and Malbec (Argentina's red wine, from Mendoza). Everything else is built around those four. The Italian influence runs deep: roughly 60% of Argentinians have Italian ancestry, which is why pasta, pizza, and milanesa are weekday staples alongside the beef.
From the grill
The asado is the centre of Argentinian food culture. Half-day affair, charcoal or wood, never gas, eaten slowly with wine. Eight things you'll find at any serious one.
01
Bife de chorizo
The Argentinian sirloin steak, despite the misleading name. Thick-cut, boneless, cooked over coals until the outside is dark and the inside is rosy. Salt only. No marinades, no rubs. The cut is so good it doesn't need them.
02
Tira de asado
Beef short ribs, cut across the bone in thin English-style strips rather than the thick American block. Slow-cooked over indirect heat for two hours, then finished closer to the coals. The first cut off the grill, traditionally served before the bigger steaks.
03
Vacío
Flank steak, with a thin fat cap that crisps into one of the best textures in the entire asado canon. Cooked slowly, fat side up, until the outside is golden and the inside is medium. Sliced against the grain, served with chimichurri.
04
Entraña
Skirt steak. The cut every Argentinian asks for first because it cooks fast, eats like butter, and pairs with anything. High heat, short time, never overcooked. The asador's favourite because it rewards good technique and punishes shortcuts.
05
Chorizo criollo
Fresh Argentinian pork sausage, not to be confused with cured Spanish chorizo. Coarse-ground, garlicky, slightly fennel-forward. Grilled until the skin splits, then sliced and eaten with crusty bread. If it ends up inside a roll with chimichurri, you have a choripán.
06
Morcilla
Blood sausage. Rich, almost sweet, with a soft interior. The Argentinian morcilla is closer to the Spanish style than the British or Irish black pudding, sometimes with raisins or pine nuts mixed in. Grilled until the skin is dark and the inside is hot. Polarising. We love it.
07
Provoleta
The asado opener. A thick disc of aged provolone, dusted with oregano and dried chilli, melted in a cast iron pan straight on the coals until the inside is molten and the top is blistered. Eaten with bread, before anything else hits the grill.
08
Choripán
Argentina's national street food and the snack you eat while waiting for the asado to finish. Grilled chorizo criollo in a crusty roll, split open and slathered with chimichurri. Football stadiums, road trips, street corners. Cheap, perfect, non-negotiable.
Sauces and sides
Three things show up next to the meat. Always. The Argentinian table without these is a sad table.
09
Chimichurri
The famous one. Chopped parsley, garlic, oregano, olive oil, red wine vinegar, chilli flakes. Never blended into a paste, always chunky. Made fresh, eaten within a few days. Goes on steak, choripán, grilled vegetables, anything that came off a fire.
10
Salsa criolla
Chimichurri's fresher cousin. Diced tomato, onion, red capsicum, red wine vinegar, olive oil. Brighter, sharper, lighter. Better with chicken and pork than chimichurri, just as good with steak. Sit it on the table next to the bread.
11
Ensalada mixta
The Argentinian salad. Lettuce, tomato, onion. That's the whole thing. Oil, salt, sometimes vinegar. No dressing in a bottle, no extra ingredients trying to be clever. The Argentinian table is meat-forward, and the salad's job is to refresh the palate, not compete with the asado.
Italian-Argentinian heritage
Six million Italians migrated to Argentina between 1860 and 1960. They brought everything with them, and over a century it all became Argentinian. These five dishes are weekday food in any Argentinian household.
12
Milanesa napolitana
A breaded beef cutlet, topped with ham, tomato sauce, and melted mozzarella. The Argentinian-Italian family dinner. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with Naples. It was invented in Buenos Aires in the 1940s by a restaurant called Nápoli. Comfort food at its most absolute.
13
Sorrentinos
Argentinian-style stuffed pasta, like ravioli's bigger, rounder cousin. Filled with ham and cheese, ricotta and spinach, or pumpkin. Served with tuco (slow-cooked tomato sauce) or with butter and sage. From the Italian neighbourhoods of Mar del Plata, now eaten everywhere.
14
Ñoquis del 29
Potato gnocchi, eaten on the 29th of every month. The superstition: place a banknote under your plate while you eat, for prosperity. The story: Italian immigrants in the 1880s were paid monthly, so by the 29th money was tight and gnocchi was cheap. Tradition stuck.
15
Fugazzeta
The Argentinian pizza you've never had. Two layers of dough, stuffed with mozzarella, topped with caramelised onion and oregano. No tomato. A Buenos Aires invention, served thick, sliced in squares. Heavier than Neapolitan, lighter than Chicago deep-dish, and entirely its own thing.
16
Fainá
A chickpea flatbread, baked thin in a wood oven and served as a side to pizza. Genovese in origin (where it's called farinata), Argentinian in execution. Order pizza in Buenos Aires and the waiter will ask if you want fainá with it. The correct answer is always yes.
Stews and comfort
The Argentinian winter is colder than people expect, and the cooking responds. These three dishes are slow, hearty, and built for cold weather.
17
Locro
The national dish. A thick stew of white corn, beef, pork, tripe, pumpkin, and beans, simmered for hours. Eaten on May 25th (May Revolution) and July 9th (Independence Day), the two Argentinian national holidays. Indigenous in origin, with Spanish and Italian additions layered in over four hundred years.
18
Guiso de lentejas
Lentil stew with chorizo, pancetta, pumpkin, and red lentils. The Argentinian winter Sunday pot. Every household has its own version, every grandmother insists hers is the right one. Eaten with crusty bread, ideally with a glass of red wine.
19
Humita
A northern Argentinian dish from Salta and Jujuy. Fresh corn ground with onion, capsicum, and cheese, then either wrapped in corn husks and steamed (humita en chala) or baked in a tray (humita en olla). Indigenous, predating the Spanish. Vegetarian, naturally.
The sweets
Argentinian dessert culture runs on one ingredient: dulce de leche. It shows up in everything sweet, often more than once in a single dish. These five are the canon.
20
Dulce de leche
Sweetened milk, slowly cooked until it caramelises into a thick, golden spread. Argentina and Uruguay both claim the invention. In Argentina it's eaten on toast, off a spoon, inside pastries, on ice cream, layered in cakes, and stirred into coffee. The single most important sweet ingredient in the cuisine.
21
Alfajores de maicena
Two cornflour shortbread biscuits sandwiched with dulce de leche, rolled in shredded coconut around the edge. Argentina's most-loved sweet, available in every kiosk and bakery, eaten with afternoon coffee. The Havanna brand is the export ambassador, but the homemade version is better.
22
Chocotorta
The birthday cake. A no-bake dessert built from Chocolinas chocolate biscuits, cream cheese, and dulce de leche, layered like a tiramisu and chilled overnight. Invented in the 1980s as a marketing campaign for the biscuits, and somehow became iconic. Every Argentinian child has a birthday photo with one.
23
Flan con dulce de leche
The asado dessert. A silky caramel custard, baked in a bain-marie, topped with a generous spoonful of dulce de leche and whipped cream. Made the day before, so the only post-asado work is plating. The hospital food of Argentinian comfort.
24
Medialunas de manteca
The Argentinian café breakfast. Smaller, sweeter, glazed cousins to the French croissant. Eaten with a cortado at 9am, with a flat white at 3pm, with whoever's around. Less buttery than the French original, more sugary, slightly chewier. The Buenos Aires café would not exist without them.
The drinks
Argentinian food doesn't make sense without the Argentinian way of drinking. One dish, one ritual, both essential.
25
Malbec
Argentina's signature red, from Mendoza. The grape originated in France but found its true home in the high-altitude vineyards of the Uco Valley, where it produces wines with deep fruit, soft tannins, and built-in compatibility with grilled beef. Catena, Trapiche, Luigi Bosca for the entry point. Anything from Uco Valley if you see it.
And the unmissable closer: mate, which isn't a dish but is the social ritual that defines the cuisine. Loose yerba leaves steeped in hot (not boiling) water, drunk through a metal straw called a bombilla, passed around a circle of friends. Argentinians drink it constantly, alone and in groups. If someone passes you the gourd, drink it all, don't say thank you (that signals you're done), and pass it back.
So what about the empanadas?
The empanada sits at the centre of the image at the top of this post because that's where it sits at the table. Before the asado, with a glass of Malbec, hot from the oven. Three or four per person, sometimes more.
We make ours in five flavours from a kitchen in Bondi Beach. The Carnivore uses slow-cooked grass-fed brisket. The Athlete is chicken with lemon and curry. The Classic is three cheeses and caramelised onion. Patagonia is the vegan one, with a green dough. Habibi Yalla is the Middle Eastern open-top style, beef with lemon and parsley. Delivered frozen, baked in 18 to 22 minutes.
If you want the full empanada story, here are the deeper reads: how to pick your first flavour, how Argentinian empanadas compare to other styles around the world, and what actually makes one good.
Cook this at home
Every recipe linked above sits inside our Argentinian Recipes Collection: twenty-five Argentinian dishes, tested in our Bondi kitchen with Australian ingredients and Sydney sourcing notes.
Or eat this in Sydney
For where to eat asado, buy alfajores, source an Argentinian butcher, or find a bottle of Torrontés in Sydney, we wrote two companion guides: the full Sydney guide to Argentinian food, and the complete Sydney map for Latin American groceries. Si sos argentino, tenemos una versión en castellano también.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most famous Argentinian food?
Asado, the slow-grilled beef over wood or charcoal, is the most iconic dish in Argentinian cuisine. It's followed by empanadas, milanesa napolitana, alfajores, and dulce de leche. Asado is more than a dish: it's a half-day social ritual that defines Argentinian food culture, eaten almost every Sunday across the country.
What is the national dish of Argentina?
Argentina has two official national dishes. Asado is the cultural national dish, eaten weekly across the country. Locro, a hearty corn and beef stew with pork and pumpkin, is the historical national dish, eaten on May 25th (May Revolution) and July 9th (Independence Day).
Is Argentinian food spicy?
No. Argentinian food is not spicy. The cuisine relies on salt, garlic, oregano, parsley, and slow cooking rather than chilli heat. Chimichurri has a hint of red chilli flake but is mild by global standards. Argentinian palates trained on this cuisine generally find Mexican, Thai, or Indian food noticeably hot.
What's the difference between Argentinian and Mexican food?
Argentinian cuisine is built on beef, pasta, wheat pastries, and wine, with deep Italian and Spanish roots. Mexican cuisine is built on corn, chillies, beans, and indigenous Mesoamerican traditions. The two cuisines share almost no common dishes. Argentinian food is not spicy, uses wheat flour instead of corn, and centres on grilled meat rather than maize-based dishes.
What do Argentinians eat for dinner?
A typical Argentinian dinner is eaten late, usually after 9pm, and often features milanesa with mashed potatoes or salad, pasta with tuco sauce, grilled chicken, or pizza. Asado is the Sunday version. Steak frites (bife con papas fritas) is the weeknight pub equivalent. Pasta on Sundays before the asado generation took over was the older Italian-Argentinian tradition.
What is a traditional Argentinian breakfast?
Light. A medialuna (sweet croissant) or two with a cortado (espresso with a splash of milk) at a café, or toast with dulce de leche at home. Argentinians do not typically eat hot or savoury breakfasts. Lunch is the main meal, usually between 1pm and 3pm.
What wine goes with Argentinian food?
Malbec from Mendoza is the classic pairing for asado, beef empanadas, and red-meat dishes. Torrontés, Argentina's aromatic white, pairs with chicken empanadas, cheese, and lighter dishes. For dessert, a glass of Patagonian sparkling or a coffee with a small fernet con coca is the traditional closer.
Where can I try Argentinian food in Sydney?
Porteño in Surry Hills is the Sydney institution for the full parrilla experience. El Corte in Darling Harbour and La Boca Bar & Grill in Mascot are also strong options. For empanadas, Argentum Empanadas handcrafts and delivers across Sydney from Bondi Beach. The complete Sydney guide is here.
Start at the table
The easiest way in is the empanadas.
Twenty-four of the dishes above are projects. The empanadas, we deliver. Five flavours, made in Bondi Beach, ready to bake from frozen in 18 to 22 minutes.
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