Plantain
The everyday starch of the Caribbean table, changing character entirely with ripeness.
Banane plantain · Plantain · Plátano
Quick facts
- Origin
- Southeast Asia, naturalised across the Caribbean from the 16th century
- Family
- Musaceae
- Flavour profile
- Starchy and grassy when green, honeyed and caramel when ripe
- Seasonality
- Year-round
- Category
- Starches & roots
- Aliases
- Green plantain, Cooking banana, Banane créole
- Calories / 100g
- 122 kcal
The story behind this ingredient
Brought to the Antilles through the Atlantic trade routes, the plantain became the region's most democratic food: fried as tostones, boiled in soups, mashed into mofongo or fufu. Its ripeness is a language of its own — green for salt, yellow for sweet.
Culinary uses: Tostones · Mofongo · Bananes pesées · Plantain chips · Sweet fried plantain
Recipes with Plantain
Ropa Vieja
170 min · Easy
Tostones with Garlic Mojo
30 min · Easy
Mofongo
45 min · Intermediate
Arroz con Gandules
60 min · Easy
Sancocho
160 min · Intermediate
Keshi Yena
80 min · Intermediate
Chefs who love this ingredient
Ricardo Méndez
Cuba · Criollo cooking and mojo
“Sour orange is the first thing I smell when I think of home.”
Madeleine de Proust: Sour Orange, Plantain
Isabela Rosario
Puerto Rico · Mofongo and sofrito
“A plantain tells you exactly what dish it wants to become.”
Madeleine de Proust: Plantain, Pigeon Pea
Learn it at the Academy
The Plantain Lab
Green to black: six ripeness stages, six techniques, from tostones to mofongo.
- Sun, 11 Oct 2026, 14:00 · 150 min
- San Juan, Puerto Rico · In person · $60