A thick, soul-warming Aymara highland soup from La Paz built on chuño (freeze-dried potato), lamb or beef, châlona (dried meat), wheat berries and Andean herbs. It is the definitive cold-weather dish of the Altiplano, blending pre-Hispanic native ingredients with Spanish-introduced meats.
Chairo is the hearty highland soup of the La Paz altiplano — a mestizo dish whose roots trace to colonial times, when Aymara estate workers simmered dried lamb, potato and chuño (freeze-dried potato) with a local herb from the shores of Lake Titicaca. Wheat, mote, beans, carrot and mint were added over generations. Built on the Andes' pre-Hispanic freeze-dried staples and Spanish-introduced meats, it is one of Bolivia's iconic mestizo soups.
Deeply savory and earthy, with the smoky-sour funk of chuño cutting through rich, fatty lamb broth. The wheat berries pop against silky potato and the herbs lend a green, almost minty lift. It eats like a meal in a bowl — warming and restorative at altitude.
Chuño's freeze-dried structure rehydrates into a porous sponge that thickens the broth while contributing a fermented, tangy depth impossible to get from fresh potato. Long, gentle simmering extracts gelatin and fat from the bony meat for body.
Variations
Beef-only or llama/alpaca versions, chairo with extra mote (hominy), restaurant versions topped with a strip of fried pork rind.
On the Palate
Where Chairo Paceño sits in the Bolivian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
7 steps · 40 min
- 110 min
Soak black chuño overnight, then peel, crush and rinse repeatedly until the water runs clear.
Watch outRinse the crushed chuño again and again until the water finally runs clear — that washes out the bitterness, or it will taint the whole pot.
- 240 min
Simmer lamb and a small piece of châlona (dried meat) in salted water, skimming the foam, to build a clear broth.
Watch outKeep skimming the foam off the lamb as it simmers so the broth stays clear — a clean base is what lets the soup turn milky later, not scummy.
- 330 min
Add wheat berries and let them simmer until they begin to soften and thicken the liquid.
- 410 min
Stir in diced potatoes, carrots, peas, fava beans and white corn kernels.
- 535 min
Add the crushed chuño and continue to simmer until everything is tender and the soup turns milky.
Watch outSimmer on until everything is fork-soft and the broth thickens to a milky white — that cloudy body from the chuño means it's done.
- 65 min
Season with cumin, oregano and a fistful of chopped quilquiña and huacatay herbs.
- 710 min
Adjust salt, simmer a few more minutes to marry the flavors, and serve piping hot with llajua on the side.
