Search
Brazil
Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Guyana
French Guiana
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Paraguay
Peru
Suriname
Uruguay
Venezuela
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Croatia
Denmark
Spain
Finland
France
Greece
the Netherlands
Hungary
Ireland
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
Norway
Poland
Portugal
the United Kingdom
the Czech Republic
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Canada
the United StatesMexico
the Dominican RepublicTurkey
South Africa
Australia
Fiji
New Zealand
Papua New GuineaFlavors · Mexico
Round sweet bread with strips of dough shaped like bones, scented with orange or anise and topped with sugar or sesame. It is the offering bread of Día de Muertos and is made throughout Mexico, with shapes and recipes that vary from region to region.
Traditional sweet from Mexico
Also known as: pan de muertos, pão dos mortos
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Pan de muerto — Mexico
Pan de muerto is the bread of Día de Muertos, the celebration when Mexican families welcome the visit of the souls of deceased relatives. In 2008, UNESCO inscribed the indigenous festival dedicated to the dead on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the bread is part of the offerings set up in homes and taken to cemeteries in early November.
It does not belong to a single city or state: it is made across the country, and each region has its own version. According to the Mexican government, in the central region it is covered with sugar; in Michoacán there is a dark, round, shiny bread; in Oaxaca, a bread rich in eggs. The most well-known form, that of Mexico City, is only one among many.
In the most widespread version, a round base is topped with a small ball of dough, representing the skull of the deceased, and four strips that recall bones, arranged in a cross. Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture lists the main ingredients as wheat flour, sugar and eggs, flavored with orange and anise and finished with a sugar or sesame topping.
The history is layered. The Mexican government records that historians connect the bread to pre‑conquest practices, and that it acquired its current form in the colonial period, when it began to be made with wheat and sugar, ingredients brought from Europe. Bakeries start selling it weeks before the festival, and the season ends with it.
Mexico
The offering bread of Día de Muertos is made throughout Mexico, with regional versions, and has no single city of origin.
Wheat flour, sugar, eggs, butter, yeast, milk; orange zest or orange water, anise; sugar or sesame topping. Regional variations change the dough and decoration.
In slices, with hot chocolate or coffee, for breakfast or as a snack. In the offerings, the bread is placed on the altar for the dead and later shared by the family.
Día de Muertos season, between late October and early November.
Your questions
In the most common version, the four strips of dough evoke bones, and the ball in the center represents the skull of the deceased.
During the Día de Muertos season, between late October and early November. Bakeries usually sell it a few weeks before the festival.
No. Each region has its own version: covered with sugar in the central region, dark and shiny in Michoacán, rich in eggs in Oaxaca, among many others.
The traditional version is not filled. Filled versions exist in bakeries, but they are variations.
Flavors of Mexico
Layers of corn tortillas with black beans and shredded cazón, cooked with epazote, topped with tomato sauce and habanero chile. Despite the name, it does not contain wheat bread. It is considered a symbol of Campeche cuisine.
Salted, dried beef — tasajo — cooked in a thick sauce of ground pumpkin seeds, with tomato and rice. It is the celebratory dish of Chiapa de Corzo, served especially during the January Fiesta Grande, the Parachicos festival.
Tacos of pork seasoned with a chile adobo, roasted on a vertical spit (the trompo), and served in a corn tortilla with pineapple, onion and cilantro. They descend from the tacos árabes brought to Puebla by Middle Eastern immigrants and took their current form in Mexico City taquerías.
White fish taco coated in a light batter and fried until golden, served on a corn tortilla with cabbage, tomato-and-onion salsa, mayonnaise or cream, and lime. It originated around 1960 at the stalls of the Mercado Negro, the fish market at the port of Ensenada.
Sandwich made with birote bread, a hard-crusted loaf, filled with carnitas and drenched in tomato sauce, with a spicy chile de árbol sauce on the side. A symbol of Guadalajara’s cuisine, which dedicated a municipal day to it on September 10.
Corn tortillas dipped in a guajillo chile sauce and fried, filled with cheese and onion, served with boiled potato and carrot, lettuce and pickled chiles. A typical dish of the city of Guanajuato, which tradition links to the wives of the silver mine workers.
Broth of cacahuazintle corn and pork thickened with a green sauce made from pumpkin seeds, tomatillo and herbs, served with many accompaniments. Dish from Guerrero, where Thursdays are pozole day.
Thin, crispy batter cooked on a round griddle and rolled like a tube, filled with queso de bola, a cheese of the Edam type. A street sweet from Mérida, created by a family of ice-cream makers in the city and sold at night from carts in the plazas.
Whole fish butterflied open, seasoned with a chile sauce and grilled over coals secured in a double-wire grill, the zaranda, which gives it its name. An official publication places its origin on the island of Mexcaltitán, on the northern coast of Nayarit.
Milk-fed kid opened, salted and slowly roasted on an iron stake beside the embers, in the shepherds’ style. It is the best-known dish of Nuevo León, present on the state’s traditional gastronomy routes, from Monterrey to the northern municipalities.
The darkest of Oaxaca’s moles: a thick sauce of chiles toasted almost to the point of burning, including the chilhuacle negro, with chocolate, seeds and spices. A celebratory dish of the state, prepared mainly in the Valles Centrales.
Poblano chile stuffed with a meat-and-fruit picadillo, topped with a white walnut sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and parsley, in the colors of the Mexican flag. A seasonal dish from late summer, associated with the city of Puebla.
Thick, dark sauce made from several dried chiles, spices, seeds and chocolate, traditionally served with turkey. Tradition links its creation to the kitchen of the old Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, the city that gives it its name.
Pork slowly cooked in its own lard in large pots until tender inside and golden outside, served in tacos. Quiroga, near Lake Pátzcuaro, is called the capital of carnitas: families in the town have been making them for more than a century.
Raw shrimp butterfly-cut and cured in lime with chiltepín chile, served with cucumber and red onion. It originated in the mountains of Sinaloa as a meat broth with water and chile and reached the coast, where shrimp took the place of meat. It is presented as the state’s most representative dish.
Freshwater fish with a long snout, grilled whole over coals and eaten with tortilla, lime, salt and chile amashito. It lives in the rivers and lagoons of Tabasco and is one of the state’s most representative dishes, with roots in pre-Hispanic cuisine of the southeast.
Distilled spirit from blue agave named after the city of Tequila, in Jalisco, surrounded by agave fields. It has a designation of origin since 1974, and the agave landscape and the region’s old industrial facilities are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Salad of romaine lettuce leaves with a dressing of egg, lemon, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, served with croutons. It was created in Tijuana by the Italian cook Caesar Cardini on July 4, 1924, according to Tijuanan historian José Fernando Escobedo de la Torre.
Red snapper cooked in a tomato sauce with olives, capers, garlic, onion, herbs and pickled chiles güeros or jalapeños. A coastal Veracruz dish, from the Gulf of Mexico, considered one of the country's best-known fish recipes.
Pork marinated in achiote and bitter orange, wrapped in banana leaf and slowly cooked in an earth oven, the pib. A Sunday family dish from Yucatán that combines the pig brought by the Spaniards with a Mayan cooking technique.
