Food is a big part of our everyday life. But have you ever thought about cooking in Spanish? We generally eat three meals a day, and even if you don’t enjoy cooking, you will need some Spanish food vocabulary to get by. Moreover, even if you know your way around the kitchen, you will need some Spanish kitchen vocabulary when in a local one.
Below, we will focus on 15 sentences from our “Everyday Life” collection that are key when cooking in Spanish. We will cover cooking instructions and questions, health and dietary restrictions, Hispanic meal times, and other key aspects. But first, let’s take a look at our curated collection.
Clozemaster “Everyday Life” collection
Our fantastic team has chosen 120 sentences in different categories, including food and cooking, to help you master everyday life in any Hispanic country. While the collection focuses mainly on vocabulary, it also showcases important grammar structures used in each context. We have picked 15 examples from the food and cooking section that highlight the relevance of this collection. Let’s dig in!
Cooking in Spanish
It might seem we are starting quite high up the complexity ladder. However, even when you buy a ready meal, there will be some instructions for you to follow. Therefore, Spanish kitchen vocabulary is vital to all. Below, we will see examples of cooking instructions and helpful questions.
Cooking in Spanish: instructions
1. Añade un poco de ajo picado. (Add a bit of minced garlic.)
The first thing of note in this sentence is the verb conjugation. When cooking in Spanish, we use the present simple for instructions. If you need a refresher, take a look at this guide on the entire Spanish present tense. Añadir (to add) is the most basic Spanish cooking verb, and you will come across it quite often, just like in English.
Who doesn’t like a bit of vagueness in their seasoning? This is where un poco (a bit) comes in. You could even say poquito and turn it into a little bit!
Finally, if you are up to date with your Spanish food vocabulary, you will be familiar with ajo (garlic). Picado might be a new one, however. This adjective comes from the verb picar and can mean minced or chopped.
2. Corta la cebolla en trozos pequeños. (Cut the onion into small pieces.)
Here we have another Spanish kitchen vocabulary essential: cortar (to cut). The instruction in this sentence adds how to cut the onion in question: en trozos pequeños. This means in small pieces, rather than large pieces or en trozos grandes. This detail can make a big difference to your dish!
Cooking in Spanish: questions
3. ¿Podrías escurrir la pasta, por favor? (Could you drain the pasta, please?)
You might want to ask someone for help around the kitchen. This question includes two ways to ask for assistance politely: the verb poder and por favor. We often use podrías for requests as the equivalent of “could you” (this article includes a deep dive on the verb poder, if needed). It is also always nice to say please (por favor)! Although we are sure you are well acquainted with this phrase.
4. ¿Añadiste sal a la salsa? (Did you add salt to the sauce?)
We have seen the verb añadir above, but this form is a little different. Instead of the present tense, this question is in the past tense. We are not giving instructions but checking if something has been done, like adding salt. So, if you want to double-check if your sous-chef has been following your instructions, this question is your friend.
Safety in Spanish kitchen vocabulary
We know the basics of cooking in Spanish. However, it is important to be safe while cooking or eating out. Below are some useful sentences and questions regarding allergies and intolerances to ensure a safe meal.
Safety in Spanish kitchen vocabulary: giving information
5. Evita la sal si tienes hipertensión. (Avoid salt if you have high blood pressure.)
You might have heard health warnings like this one. Evitar (to avoid) is a useful verb for dietary restrictions. Evitar does not mean you can’t have something, but that you shouldn’t eat it due to health concerns.
Moreover, if you have high blood pressure, we normally use the technical term hipertensión (hypertension) in Spanish, but you can also say presión alta in layperson terms.
6. Soy intolerante a la lactosa, lo siento. (I’m lactose intolerant, I’m sorry.)
We have all been offered something we don’t like or we can’t eat at some point. This sentence is handy when refusing a meal due to a dietary restriction. It explains that you are lactose intolerant (intolerante a la lactosa) and adds an apology to avoid offending the person offering the food.
7. Mi hermano es alérgico a los cacahuates. (My brother is allergic to peanuts.)
What about allergies? These are called alergias in Spanish, and the adjective to ask someone if they have a specific one is alérgico for the masculine and alérgica for the feminine. Moreover, this sentence shows how you can express an allergy on behalf of someone else.
Regarding Spanish food vocabulary, we would like to direct your attention to cacahuates. Cacahuates means peanuts, but we use maní instead in South America. This is an important reminder that there is a lot of variation in Spanish vocabulary. Something to keep in mind when cooking in Spanish!
8. Necesito un menú sin gluten, gracias. (I need a gluten-free menu, thank you.)
Another common dietary restriction is gluten. Most people have a gluten intolerance rather than a gluten allergy. This is called celiac disease or enfermedad celíaca in Spanish. We refer to the person as celiac or celíaco/a. This sentence shows us how to request a special menu. In this case, one without gluten.
You can use the previous three sentences for all dietary restrictions by just changing some key words. Here are some examples:
- Soy alérgico a los cacahuates, lo siento. (I am allergic to peanuts, I’m sorry.)
- Mi hermano es celíaco. (My brother is a celiac.)
- Necesito un menú sin lactosa, gracias. (I need a lactose-free menu, thank you.)
Safety in Spanish kitchen vocabulary: asking questions
The questions below nicely complement the statements in the previous section.
9. ¿Puedes preparar la carne sin sal? (Can you prepare the meat without salt?)
Whether due to health issues or personal preference, this sentence shows us how to request something be removed from our meal.
10. ¿Tienes alguna restricción alimentaria especial? (Do you have any particular dietary restrictions?)
If you are organising a meal for friends or an event, it is important to ask them about their dietary restrictions. This question does just that.
11. ¿Puedo reemplazar la harina normal por avena? (Can I replace regular flour with oatmeal?)
Finally, you might be on the hunt for new recipes, but often find they include ingredients you or a loved one cannot have. You can replace the ingredients in this question with whatever the recipe calls for and your chosen replacement. This way, you can check if it would still work with a substitute.
Cooking in Spanish: miscellaneous section
This final section includes some key vocabulary we couldn’t quite group with the rest, but that is equally important.
12. ¿Tienes una receta fácil de sopa? (Do you have an easy soup recipe?)
What if you’d like to improve your cooking in Spanish by asking a friend for a recipe? You probably already know tener (to have) is an irregular verb. If you need a refresher, here is the entire conjugation.
Another neat feature of this question is the word fácil (easy). You might be looking for just any recipe, but if you want to keep it simple, this is a good word to include in your vocabulary database.
13. Mi ensalada lleva zanahorias, lechuga y maíz. (My salad has carrots, lettuce and corn.)
What if you need to respond to the previous question? Then you can use the verb llevar. Llevar usually means “to take.” However, in this context, it means “to have.” You might have seen this verb used with clothes, meaning “to wear.” While the flexibility of this verb is quite impressive, it can prove tricky to learn.
14. Voy a hornear un pastel de manzana. (I’m going to bake an apple pie.)
There is nothing unusual about this sentence, but we’ll use it as an excuse to expand your Spanish kitchen vocabulary. Both Spanish and English have a lot of different verbs when it comes to cooking and baking. As seen above, hornear means to bake. Here are some other examples:
| English | Spanish |
| to cook | cocinar/cocer |
| to boil | hervir |
| to fry | freír |
| to roast or grill | asar |
| to saute | sofreír |
| to microwave | cocinar en microondas |
| to steam | cocinar al vapor |
| to simmer | hervir a fuego lento |
Spanish has at least fifty verbs for food prep and cooking. You can find an extended list in this article.
15. Me gusta desayunar huevos revueltos. (I like having scrambled eggs for breakfast.)
We’ll round off our sentence examples for cooking in Spanish with three very distinct topics: how to say you like something, the meals of the day, and different ways to cook eggs in Spanish.
Firstly, saying whether you like something is key to your Spanish food vocabulary. Funnily enough, one of the grammar topics most English speakers struggle with when learning Spanish is the verb gustar (to like). This is because we don’t like things in Spanish, but rather things are to our liking. Strange, right?
This means we conjugate the verb gustar not according to the person doing the liking, but the thing we like. So, in Me gusta desayunar, desayunar (to have breakfast) is the subject. The person doing the liking is therefore reflected on the me, which is called an indirect object.
Confused yet? Fret not! We have an entire article on gustar for this very reason. You can read all about this tricky verb here.
Moving on to our next point, not only do we have four meals in a day in Spanish, but each of these has its own verb! In Hispanic culture, we have breakfast (desayuno), lunch (almuerzo or comida), a snack or tea (merienda), and dinner (cena). Our merienda is usually quite similar to breakfast. You can find some examples in this article.
While exact times vary from country to country, we typically have breakfast between 7 and 10 am. Lunch is generally between 12 and 3 pm. However, the Spanish rarely have theirs before 2 pm! We have our merienda between 5 and 7 pm, which in some countries just rolls into dinner. Finally, dinner rarely starts before 8 pm and can be as late as 10 pm. The verbs for these meals are desayunar, almorzar, merendar and cenar, respectively.
Finally, there are just so many ways to cook eggs! It is certainly helpful to know these in Spanish, but it would take us a whole article to cover them all. We will focus on the main three here, and you can read this article for another 12.
Scrambled eggs are huevos revueltos, hard-boiled eggs are huevos duros and fried eggs are huevos fritos. How do you prefer yours?
Final thoughts on Spanish food vocabulary
Cooking in Spanish definitely has its intricacies. It is not only the Spanish kitchen vocabulary that you need to tackle. There are the grammatical intricacies of verbs like gustar or even the polite forms like poder and por favor. Moreover, if you have any dietary restrictions, you will need to know how to express those in Spanish.
Clozemaster’s “Everyday Life” collection will help you build a strong foundation in food and cooking Spanish vocabulary. If you found this article helpful, you will benefit from the many other sentences in the collection. Are you ready to master cooking in Spanish?
