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Mote pillo or Ecuadorian hominy with eggs

Recipe for Ecuadorian mote pillo, this traditional breakfast dish consists of hominy sautéed with onions, garlic, achiote, eggs, milk, chives and cilantro or parsley, and served with hot black coffee and slices of fresh cheese.

Ecuadorian mote pillo recipe

Receta en español

Mote pillo is a traditional Ecuadorian dish of hominy corn with scrambled eggs. It is the perfect breakfast or brunch dish, but can also be served as main meal for lunch or a side dish for grilled or roasted meat dishes. Mote pillo is very easy and quick to make: the mote or hominy is sautéed with onions, garlic, achiote, eggs, milk, chives and cilantro or parsley.

Mote pillo recipe

Mote pillo is almost always served with hot black coffee and slices of fresh cheese. Mote or hominy is dry corn that has been peeled and then boiled until soft. You can cook the mote or hominy ahead of time, I usually make a large batch and keep some frozen so that it’s easily ready to make this dish.It is very easy to find it already prepared and canned in most grocery stores, usually in the canned vegetable section or in the ethnic section.

Ecuadorian mote pillo

This Ecuadorian hominy dish is a traditional dish from the highlands or Sierra region in Ecuador. The city of Cuenca (and the whole province of Azuay) claim this dish as their specialty. My hometown of Loja is a few hours away from Cuenca, so we also eat a lot of mote or hominy in Loja. To me this is really one of the best comfort foods, like many other dishes from the Sierra it warms me up inside when I eat it.

Ecuadorian mote pillo recipe

Mote pillo or hominy with eggs

Ecuadorian mote pillo consists of hominy corn sautéed with onions, garlic, achiote, eggs, milk, chives and cilantro or parsley, and served with hot black coffee and slices of fresh cheese
4.85 from 151 votes
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Course: Breakfast, Brunch, Main Course, Side Dish
Cuisine: Andean, Ecuadorian, Latin, South American
Keyword: Eggs, Hominy, Hominy with scrambled eggs, Mote pillo
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  • 1 lb cooked mote or hominy can also use canned hominy
  • 2 tbs butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup of diced white onion can also use spring onions (white part only) or leeks (white part only)
  • 2 garlic cloves crushed
  • ¼ tsp ground achiote
  • ¼ cup milk
  • 2 tbs chopped chives or scallions
  • 1 tbs finely chopped cilantro or parsley
  • Salt to taste

Serve with:

  • Queso fresco slices and black coffee

Instructions

  • Heat the butter over medium heat in a large sauté pan, add the chopped onions, crushed garlic, achiote, and salt to make a refrito, cook until the onions/leeks are soft, about 5 minutes.
  • Add the mote or hominy, stir in well and cook for another 2 minutes.
  • Add the milk and cook until the milk is almost all absorbed by the hominy.
  • Whisk the eggs and add them to the hominy, stir well and cook for about 3-5 minutes.
  • Stir in the chives and cilantro and add additional salt if needed.
  • Serve accompanied by queso fresco slices and hot black coffee.

Preparation photos for Ecuadorian mote pillo or hominy with eggs:
Making hominy and egg scramble
Cooking hominy and eggs

Motepillo cuencano
mote pillo
Mote pillo
Ecuadorian hominy dish
Ecuadorian Mote pillo

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35 Comments

  1. I love your recipes!!! They are very authentic and I know how they are suppose to taste because I was born and lived in Ecuador half of my life. In South Florida it’s very difficult to find ecuadorian food and if you find it doesn’t taste like the real thing. You should be proud of yourself because you acomplished that and you just told me how to make it. I can imagine how your food taste, you should open a restaurant. =)

  2. What a lovely website you have. I was searching for the recipe of a wonderful hominy dish I had at breakfast on the Athala cruiseship around the Galapagos two summers ago. I have been to Ecuador twice now-one for volunteer dental treatment of the children near Cuenca and then the trip to the Galapagos. All the food was wonderful but the Mote Pillo stood out. We have having a latin flavored party this weekend and I will make the mote pillo the next morning. I live in a country area of Pennsylvania and bags of dried hominy are very easily attainable. Popular here in cow and corn country. I have a large bag in the pantry. Thank you for the high quality pictures and I look forward to searching around your site.

  3. It’s really nice to know that someone out there appreciate this healthy food as much as I do. Modern times are killing our precious food legacy, not because they show any difficulty at the time of cooking, but because of lack of knowledge about food concepts. I was born in Ecuador and grew up eating all these delicious and nutritious snacks, it was a shame tough, knowing that this kind of corn “mote” was only used to feed horses and cows in Europe! I am proud of showing that hominy is edible for humans too, and I got to make it as in mote con chicharron once and mote pillo twice, well my husband, who is Dutch, still doesn’t like it, but he likes maiz tostado in his ceviche! and that’s a major achievement. :=)
    As a writer, I’ve found a lot of exotic, odd type of food and drinks, which is my speciality, and it’s amazing to see how corn is used for so many types of concoctions. It’s such a great cereal. Chicha de Jora is an example.
    Keep up with your good work!
    Karina
    ps. by the way I am currently cooking your delicious seco de pollo recipe, oh kitchen smells so goood…!

  4. Thank you for this recipe this looks delicious I can’t wait to try it. I had some left over hominy from a posole I made i couldn’t think of what to do with it.

  5. This is the best breakfast, other than humitas con cafe that my mother used to make for my siblings and I when we were young… I love this so much I have showed my husband (he is from Colombia) to love this dish as much as I do.

    Thanks for exploring all our beautiful Ecuadorian food.

  6. hola
    yo soy ecuatoriana pero de guayaquil y recien me mudo a seattle mi esposo es militar y me encataria poder hacer seco de chivo pero no se donde conseguirlo podrias ayudarme con eso
    gracias y q gusto saber q estes sacando recetas de nuestro asi y q a la gente le guste
    gracias por lo q estas haciendo
    bye

    Hola Rebecca – Puedes encontrar carne de chivo en la Carniceria El Paisano, queda en West Seattle: 9629 15th SW., Seattle, WA 98106

  7. Hi Laylita, I would like to ask what actually is a pillo. I am desperately searching for its meaning as I have it in a text that I need to translate to Czech but it is hard to find anything on google.
    Well, and I must agree with all the previous comments, it really looks delicious.

    Hi Lucie – The word pillo has different meanings, the first one I think of when I hear the word (outside of the kitchen) is a small time thief or minor delinquent or someone sneaky (my kids would say someone like Swiper the Fox). The meaning changes on the context, for example if you say “te pille” it means “I caught you doing something sneaky”

  8. Laylita, I am so happy my cousin posted your colada on facebook. I am from Guayaquil and while I moved to the US when I was 11, I was brought up eating traditional Ecuadorian food. My mother is a very good cook and while I am 50 years old, I have never really learned to cook the more complicated recipes.

    By the way when I was very young, we used to spend a lot of time in Cuenca. I long to go back and visit.

  9. ooooooooooooooohmygoodness that looks good as I’m sitting here eating a supper with hominy. LOL I will fix this!

    Actually, eating supper prompted me to look for hominy flakes. I used to eat them for breakfast and just LOVED them and you can’t find them any more. :(

    Thank you for sharing this recipe ! mmmmmmmmmmm….

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