9 Recipes for Tempting Spanish Tapas (2024)

FAQs

What foods are in Spanish tapas? ›

Popular throughout Spain, tapas are festive and delicious appetizers and snacks. Traditional tapas include mixed olives, fried baby squid, meatballs, and chorizo. Whether you're craving briny seafood or crispy potatoes, these are our best tapas recipes.

Tapas are basically a wide variety of appetizers or snacks. These sampler-sized dishes are built for sharing. Some are small portions of entrees such as stews or paella, also orderable as a half (media ración) or full portion (ración).

Tapas can be combined to make a full meal, and can be cold (such as mixed olives and cheese) or hot (such as chopitos, which are battered, fried baby squid, or patatas bravas). In some bars and restaurants in Spain and across the globe, tapas have evolved into a very sophisticated cuisine.

Tapas has two meanings in Spanish. As a verb, tapas means “to cover”, revealing its origins as a way for guests to cover their drinks with pieces of food. As a noun, it references small plates of food.

A common Spanish appetizer is "tapas." Tapas are a wide variety of small, savory dishes that can include items like olives, cheese, cured meats, seafood, and more.

Tapas are a wide variety of appetizers, or snacks, in Spanish cuisine. They may be cold (such as mixed olives and cheese) or warm (such as chopitos, which are battered, fried baby squid).

TA•PAS (noun) - “small Spanish savory dishes, typically served with drinks at a bar.”

Paella is perhaps the most famous Spanish dish of all, and certainly one of the most abused. Authentic paella originates from the region around Valencia, and comes in two varieties: Paella Valenciana, with rabbit and chicken; and seafood paella.

Tapas are basically small plates of food. They're essentially bar snacks served alongside beer or wine. Traditionally they would have been free with each drink but times have changed.

How many tapas dishes are there? ›

However, you can trust us that 2 to 3 tapas per person are really enough! In case you still want to have the feeling to have your own place ... you take a bit of each tapas on your plate and put together your very own dish.

Hot tapas—as the name implied, these tapas are meant to be served warm. Depending on your preferences, these might include sizzling shrimp, or chorizo with paprika, prepared in a white wine sauce and fava bean pesto. Cold tapas—are meant to be served chilled.

Even in tapas, there are three types. Sattvic Tapas, Rajasic Tapas andTamasic Tapas.

Portion sizes will vary by restaurant, but typically, ordering 2 to 3 tapas per person gets the job done. So a party of 4 would order 8 to 12 tapas between them. Don't be afraid to ask your server if you haven't ordered enough food, and remember, your friends are there to help if you've ordered too much.

There are no rules for what tapas can be; they are sometimes meant to be shared and eaten with toothpicks, but they can also be small individual dishes with their own cutlery, and other times its perfectly acceptable to eat tapas with your hands. They will also take different forms depending on where you are in Spain.