Paste de Yuca

Pasteles are a traditional dish in several Latin American and Caribbean countries. Pastel de yuca or yuca pie is basically like a shepherd’s pie except substituting the mashed potato for mashed yuca. Yuca is a hearty root, thick and full of carbohydrates.

Costa Rican pastel de yuca  doesn’t it look like variants of many  Latin American  tamale, It is rather  similar to lasagna. Instead of pasta sheets, a cream cheese mashed cassava/yuca mix is used. It is built in layers alternating between ground or shredded meat (beef, pork, chicken), homemade tomato sauce, and cheese.

Many versions of the pasteles de yuca, hayaca de yuca, empanadilla/empanada de yuca and rusiao de yuca are often mistaken as the same, because they are often all cassava based wrapped in banana leaf.