Mangu

When I met my husband, I was introduced to the amazing breakfast dish called mangu. Pronounced “mon-goo“, this is a traditional Dominican breakfast item of mashed green plantains and topped with pickled red onions. This would typically be eaten with a fried white cheese and fried salami, but you can also eat this as your side dish to bacon or sausage and eggs.

Recipe at a Glance

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Notes: I recommend making the mangu texture the way you like mashed potatoes. You ca keep this firmer with chunks of plantains, or add water to smooth it out.

My favorite part about mangu is the pickled red onions on top. This is a step you definitely do not want to skip. This seriously makes the dish! The mashed plantains is a heavy dish, and you really need the acidity that the pickled red onions provide. It helps cut through the heaviness and light then bite. Once you have these pickled red onions you’ll be thinking of all the recipes that can use some pickled red onions on them! You can find the recipe for them here!

Green Plantains vs Yellow Plantains

So you’ll notice at the grocery store you’ve got your green and yellow plantains. What’s the difference?

Essentially, they are the same fruit just at different stages of ripeness. A green plantain is the immature fruit, and as it ripens the green husk turns yellow and voila! We now have a yellow sweet plantain.

The green and yellow are used for different types of recipes. Green plantains you use for dishes like this mangu or fried tostones. And yellow you use for recipes like maduros, which are fried pieces of yellow plantain. Isn’t everything better fried?

If you’re wondering if the two are interchangeable for this recipe, the answer is no. You cannot use a yellow plantain and get the same flavors and textures as needed for mangu.

Recipe Tips

• As noted above, you want to buy the green plantains, not the yellow. They don’t have the same flavors and aren’t interchangeable in this recipe.
• Since green and yellow plantains are the same fruit, just at different stages of ripeness, when you buy the green plantains eventually they will turn yellow and sweet. I suggest using them within 2 days of buying them, they turn fast!
• Make sure you boil them long enough to make the mashing easier. Test the chunks with a fork before turning off the fork. Like with mashed potatoes, they should be easily pricked with a fork.
• Add the water in stages. As mangu cools it hardens and gets stiff, so if it first it looks like too much water, trust me just let it sit and it would absorb and harden up.
• The best consistency for mangu is a thing of personal taste! Think about mashed potatoes, some people like them totally smooth and some people like them to have some potato pieces. The same goes for mangu. Personally, I like my smoother and softer so I can a little more water. My husband on the other hand, likes is firmer with more pieces of plantain.

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