Sofrito Español: The Foundation of Spanish Cooking

Spanish sofrito developed after the tomato arrived in Spain from the Americas in the 16th century. Its integration into the base of Iberian cooking was gradual — by the 17th century, the tomato-onion-garlic combination had become the defining base of Spanish cooking across all regions. The word sofrito appears in Spanish culinary texts by the 1700s.

Spanish sofrito (distinct from Italian soffritto) is the aromatic base of Spanish cooking — onion, garlic, and tomato cooked slowly in olive oil until the tomato's water has completely evaporated and the mixture has reduced to a concentrated, deep-flavoured paste. Unlike the Italian soffritto (which uses no tomato and serves primarily as a fat-extraction base) and the Indian wet masala (which builds in sequence), the Spanish sofrito cooks all three components to a single unified paste where the tomato is as important as the onion.

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