From Tostones to Amarillitos: Finding Joy, Flexibility, and Flavor in a Latin Kitchen

Last Updated on August 15, 2025 by Krista Linares, MPH, RD and Almarie Talavera, RDN, LDN

We often plan our meals with good intentions—tostones with fricase de pollo, a full fridge after Sunday shopping—but life has a way of rerouting dinner plans. 

A surprise night out, your partner ordering pizza, or the heat ripening your plátanos faster than expected can derail the meal.

But if you grew up with a mami like mine, you learned more than just recipes—you learned resourcefulness. 

She would let me make pancakes standing on a stool. I would make a mess, but to her, those were the best pancakes. Before I knew it, I was cooking my own meals—mimicking the flavors I had grown up with, building muscle memory in the kitchen without even realizing it.

Years later, working in food service as a dietitian, I realized I had inherited more than good taste. I had inherited my mom’s ability to keep inventory low and food costs down. 

Without formal training, she had passed on the skills that would help me hit benchmark goals in a professional kitchen: creativity, improvisation, and a don’t-let-anything-go-to-waste mindset.

One thing that stood out about Mami’s cooking was how rarely anything went to waste. She didn’t call it “batch cooking” or “meal prepping”—but that’s exactly what she did. 

Her go-to staples were rice and beans, which she cooked in big batches, freezing portions or remixing them with different ingredients.

If she made white rice and froze it, two weeks later, she would mix the rice with red kidney beans, sazón, chicken broth, sofrito, ripe plantains, a few bay leaves, and spices. Just 10 minutes later, we’d be enjoying the most delicious arroz mamposteado.

These weren’t just cooking skills. They were life skills: flexibility, creativity, frugality, and love.

This article is featured in the “hay comida en la casa” issue of our zine! Read the whole issue here.

How to Build Flexibility in Your Own Kitchen

To develop this kind of adaptability in the kitchen, you have to embrace the versatility of ingredients and cooking methods.

Start by exploring new ways to use a single ingredient. For example, you can prepare an onion raw, pickled, sautéed, or caramelized—each version adds a unique flavor and texture to a meal. Understanding your ingredients makes it easier to improvise when plans change.

Cooking methods also yield different results. Steamed broccoli and baked broccoli don’t taste the same—one is soft and plain, the other crunchy and rich.

 Mami could turn plantains into at least six different dishes depending on how she cooked them: baked, sautéed, fried, microwaved, roasted, or boiled. That variety made the same ingredient feel new each time.

And don’t worry if you don’t have fancy kitchen gadgets. Mami mostly used a few pans and the oven. Later in life, she started collecting small appliances like a waffle maker or air fryer. But her best meals? They came from humble tools. Pots and pans are more than enough to start.

Learning How to Pivot: From Missed Plans to Pastelón 

Life gets busy, and the green plantains ripen—now they’re almost black but we have alternatives! If you come from a Latin household, you know this isn’t the end of the story—it’s the beginning of something even better.

At first, there’s a little guilt. You see the forgotten ingredients and think, “I should’ve used those earlier.” But then you hear that little voice in your head—your mom’s or your abuela’s—saying, “Nada se bota.” 

Nothing gets thrown away. That’s when the wheels start turning. The ripe plantains are too soft for tostones, not quite right for amarillitos, but perfect for something else: pastelón.

Making pastelón wasn’t originally on the menu. You didn’t have ground beef defrosted, and you didn’t prep the seasoning. But resourcefulness kicks in—you swap in whatever protein you have. Maybe it’s leftover chicken, maybe lentils, maybe a mix of veggies and beans. 

You mash the protein of choice together with sofrito, sazón, and tomato paste, layering that savory filling between sweet plantain slices, much like a culinary version of Tetris.

The dish smells incredible—the contrast of sweet and savory hits every nostalgic nerve. And when your family takes their first bite, they light up. “This is better than what we were going to eat!” they say. And you smirk, because you know they’re right.

The real magic isn’t just in the dish. It’s in the pivot—the moment you turned “what now?” into “wow.” It’s in the flexibility you’ve cultivated, the creativity you’ve practiced, the quiet confidence that’s been simmering in your soul for years. 

What began as a small act of salvage becomes a story of resilience, nourishment, and love.

You didn’t follow a recipe—you followed your instincts, your roots, your inherited wisdom. In doing so, you reduced food waste, saved money, fed your family, and created a meal that will be remembered far longer than any takeout order.

Why the Pivot Matters

Moments like these remind us that cooking isn’t always about the perfect grocery list or sticking to a rigid meal plan. Real home cooking is about adapting to what you have, listening to what your ingredients are telling you, and allowing space for creativity when life gets in the way.

It’s a value system passed down from generations who didn’t always have abundance, but who always made things work—and often made them delicious. 

So next time you get home and the meat is still frozen and the yucca has sprouted, remember- “Figure it out—hay comida en casa.”

You Can Make It Your Story Too

If this story isn’t yours yet, it can be. Start by letting go of perfection. Meals don’t have to look Instagram-worthy to be meaningful. They don’t need to follow exact measurements to be nourishing. They just need to come from a place of care, curiosity, and a little bit of courage.

Here are three ways to practice the pivot:

1. Take regular inventory. Know what’s in your fridge and pantry. What’s nearing expiration? Build your next meal around those items.
2. Practice one ingredient, many ways. Try cooking the same ingredient (like plantains or carrots) using different methods. Roasted, boiled, mashed, sautéed—the variety will surprise you.
3. Keep a running list of “back-pocket meals.” These are quick meals you can make with pantry staples or leftovers—things like arroz con huevo, tuna salad with crackers, lentil stew, or yes, pastelón with whatever filling you’ve got.

At its core, cooking at home isn’t just about feeding people; it’s about transforming the unexpected into memorable moments. 

Whether it’s pastelón made from overripe plátanos or a soup using scraps, these experiences remind us that ‘hay comida en la casa’ is more than just a phrase—it’s a mindset rooted in creativity, care, and the quiet wisdom passed down through generations. 

The more we practice this approach, the more we realize that the best meals are often unplanned—they’re discovered through resourcefulness, adaptability, and versatility, all while being cost-effective and delicious. 

Use the knowledge I’ve shared to create something tasty and meaningful.

This article is featured in an issue of our digital zine, titled “Hay Comida en la Casa”! Read the whole issue for more insights into Latin American home cooking and nutrition.

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