▷ Gluten Free In Oaxaca City - 2 Cooks in the Kitchen

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Discover gluten-free dining in Oaxaca City with “2 Cooks in the Kitchen.” Enjoy delicious, safe meals tailored for gluten-sensitive diners.

Exploring Delicious Gluten-Free Options in Oaxaca’s Culinary Scene

In 2024, the 2 Cooks explored Oaxaca City, immersing themselves in the rich culinary traditions surrounding molé. Their journey highlights both the successes and challenges of maintaining a gluten-free lifestyle in a region renowned for its diverse and flavorful cuisine. This experience sheds light on how gluten-free eating can be navigated even in areas where traditional dishes may pose a dietary challenge.

Matthew and Kelly Cook, passionate food enthusiasts from Northern California, have shifted their focus to gluten-free recipes following a recent Celiac disease diagnosis. Their approach emphasizes that many recipes can naturally accommodate gluten-free diets, while others can easily be adapted with simple substitutions. This commitment to inclusivity in their cooking allows a wider audience to enjoy delicious and visually appealing meals, regardless of dietary restrictions.

Exploring the Flavorful Oasis: A Culinary Journey Through Oaxaca’s Gluten-Free Delights

If you follow along you know how much we like everything to do with mole from the history to the chilies to the preparation to the plating. We love our mole. So what could be better for us than a trip to where it all comes from, Oaxaca City. With the abundance of corn as an ingredient in Mexico we thought eating gluten-free should be a snap on this trip but the actual experience was quite different. We found gluten in two places we hadn’t expected. The most disappointing for us was that many places thicken their mole with bread. This is not traditional so it was surprising how widespread this practice was. We found a few places that said they didn’t do that and we ate there without getting sick so we want to let you know about those. The second place we found gluten was in the chips restaurants were serving..

There were several that had wheat flour mixed with the Masa to make their tortillas and chips this one can be more difficult because the servers often don’t know how their chips are made. It was often a matter of when in doubt, do without. So from the time we first started planning this trip we were attracted to Mezcal Y Mole, an intriguing tasting experience. They have worked hard to pair Mezcal with each of their seven moles. One is invited to taste the Mezcal, taste the mole and then mix the two together in your mouth. This is a great gluten-free adventure and we highly recommend it. This is a tasting rather than a meal so you’ll probably want a dinner reservation after. Another experience we were able to enjoy was at Tiera Del Sol. Before they seat you at a table they introduce you to the three pillars of their Chef’s Cuisine: corn, chilies and chocolate..

Given the importance of corn in their food they would be less likely to adulterate it with wheat. We can’t recall how much of their menu was gluten-free but we were able to enjoy these Three generations of mole with a turkey leg. We also had a dish with Mole Blanco which we hadn’t seen before and now we’re going to have to try and make that. The restaurant Chichillo was on our list because they had a mole sampler on the menu. We were assured there is no wheat in their moles and really enjoyed trying them all. Even in Oaxaca everyone has a different idea of what the seven moles of Oaxaca are. This experience had two moles we hadn’t heard of and left off some that show up most often. This just helps make it interesting as well as giving us more moles to make. One of the experiences that was less enjoyable was Casa Oaxaca. This restaurant shows up on a lot of.

Lists of recommended places but it fell short for us. On the plus side there are some really good gluten-free dishes here but they kept taking the food away before we were finished with it. It was as if they were trying to rush us out but they had a lot of empty tables so it made no sense. For example they made salsa table side, brought us a big basket of nice looking tortillas and then took it all away a few minutes later. We advised others who were going there to be vigilant and hang on to your food. They kind of snuck in and took it away so we didn’t have a chance to say anything. We started with a really tasty Carpaccio and then for Mains we had the short rib with Mole Manchamanteles as well as the Catch of the Day with chintextle chili paste and it was all truly delicious if only we’d had time to savor it all. There are so many food stalls in the markets in.

Oaxaca. We took a Oaxaca Street Food tour that went to three markets and sampled several of the food stalls. It was very tricky to get the vendors to understand the concept of gluten and most had a difficult time accommodating us. Our group was treated to a four mole sampler and only one of them was gluten-free. There were several other instances on this tour where there just wasn’t a gluten-free option we felt that all in all the tour was well worth doing and we found ourselves back at the markets later in our stay. Las Quince Letras was another place that had been on our list. It’s possible we landed at the wrong place for dinner that night but it was still interesting and delicious at Las Quince Letras. Now we have learned that some moles have bread used in them so that has made it hard for Matthew to try all the moles but this place actually indicated.

Gluten-free choices. By the way we also carry a card in Spanish that he had made that briefly explains his allergy to gluten and that it can make him sick because many servers do not speak English. Matthew picked Duo de mole which is a flavorful pairing of two traditional Oaxaca moles: a green mole served with tender pork, which wasn’t really that tender, and a rich red seguaza mole accompanied by Savory beef which just fell apart. Kelly decided on Tasajo a la oaxaquena, a Savory grilled beef slice topped with melted Oaxaca quesio accompanied by a red mole enchilada. That beef was a huge slice and when the cheese was warm it was this ooey gooey delight. We enjoyed a couple of cocktails, of course, and then for dessert a flan which was made with cheese which basically had the texture of Cheesecake. Gorgeous and such a treat..

We also had dinner one night at Origen. This was a weird experience. It’s a high-end place with great recommendations but it had the weirdest service and activities going on like with a guy moving chairs around and just in general weird and lacking attention to customers. Food was pretty good though. Matthew had pork tenderloin with a couple moles and Kelly went for tomato salad with a dragon fruit reduction. We made a business card that explains our gluten allergy in Spanish. This has been very helpful in a lot of circumstances. Generally speaking most servers can read and understand the allergy and they can convey that to the kitchen and we have been in circumstances where the person we are dealing with can’t read and also can’t understand our accent if we read the card to them but mostly this is helpful and the card doesn’t deal with cross-contamination,.

Really, it just lets them know that I can’t eat wheat, barley or soy sauce or anything made with beer and It ends by saying thank you for helping me maintain my health. So just kind of summing up here. There are really a lot of good gluten-free options in Oaxaca City and it’s just well worth the visit and you can find the moles that you can taste and eat healthily, you just have to be on your toes and make sure that they’re not thickening the mole with bread or putting wheat in their tortillas