Latin America & Caribbean

Mute: Colombian Hominy Soup from Santander

Name: Mute: Colombian Hominy Soup from Santander
Prep time: 35 min
Cook time: 1 h 45 min
Total time: 2 h 20 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Colombian (Santander)
Ingredients: 350 g Beef shank or beef chuck; 220 g Pork shoulder or pork belly block; 150 g Pre-cleaned honeycomb tripe; 1/2 (100 g) Onion; 1 stalk's worth Green part of a leek; 2 cloves (12 g) Garlic; 1 Bay leaf; 1.4 L Water; 1 tsp Salt; 1 can (drained weight about 430 g) Canned hominy; 150 g Canned chickpeas; 120 g Canned red kidney beans; 2 (260 g) Potatoes; 180 g Squash; 1 (140 g) Carrot; 1/2 (100 g) Onion; 60 g Leek or scallion; 2 cloves (12 g) Garlic; 50 g Short pasta; 1 tsp Annatto seed; 1 tsp Cumin seed; 1 tsp Paprika; 2 tbsp Vegetable oil; 1/3 tsp Black pepper; 20 g Cilantro; 1 Lime; 1 Avocado

How to make mute, a hominy and meat soup from Santander, Colombia. Beef, pork, tripe, beans, and root vegetables, organized as a pressure-cooker version that is easy in a home kitchen, with annatto, substitutes, heat control, how it is eaten locally, and storage.

Published: October 24, 2026Total: 2 hr 20 minLevel: Intermediate

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 7

Blanch the tripe and meat

15 min

Blanching beef, pork, and tripe over high heat to remove the scum — Blanch the tripe and meat once over high heat and discard the water, removing scum and smell before the main simmer

Cut the tripe into 4 cm pieces, the beef into 4 cm cubes, and the pork into 3 cm cubes. Put the meat and tripe in a pot with water to cover and bring to a boil over high heat; once boiling, boil for 5 minutes. When large gray scum rises and the water turns cloudy, turn off the heat, drain in a sieve, and rinse the scum from the surface with lukewarm water. Getting the smell out here keeps the finished soup from becoming too heavy.

STEP 22 / 7

Make the meat broth

45 min

Simmering beef, pork, and aromatics in a pressure cooker to make broth — In a pressure cooker, after reaching high pressure, cook over low heat and make broth until the meat is tender

Put the blanched meat, 100 g onion, the green part of the leek, 2 cloves garlic lightly cracked with the flat of a knife, the bay leaf, 1.4 L water, and 1 tsp salt in a pressure cooker. Cover and bring to pressure over medium heat; once at high pressure, lower to low heat and cook for 25 minutes, then turn off the heat and let it release naturally for 10 minutes. In an ordinary pot, simmer for 75 to 90 minutes over low heat, with the surface gently trembling. The base of the broth is sufficient when a chopstick goes easily into the beef and the pork fat has turned nearly translucent.

STEP 33 / 7

Make the achiote aromatic base

8 min

Cooking onion, leek, garlic, and cumin in the oil colored by annatto — Bring out the annatto oil's color over low heat without scorching, and cook the onion until translucent

Put 2 tbsp oil and 1 tsp annatto seed in a separate large pot and warm over low heat for 2 minutes. When the oil takes on a red tint, remove the seeds, add 100 g onion, 60 g leek, and 12 g garlic, and cook over medium-low heat for 4 minutes. When the onion is translucent and the aroma rises as you mix in 1 tsp cumin seed and 1 tsp paprika, you have a base that will hold the kernels and meat.

STEP 44 / 7

Simmer the kernels and root vegetables

20 min

Simmering hominy, beans, potatoes, squash, and carrots in the achiote-colored broth — Cook the hominy and beans quietly over low heat and wait until the potatoes and squash are tender

Strain the broth from step 2, discard the aromatics, and pour 1.1 L into the pot with the aromatic base. Add the hominy, chickpeas, red kidney beans, potatoes, squash, and carrot, and bring to a gentle bubble over medium-low heat. Once it boils, lower to low heat and cook for 15 minutes, until a skewer goes into the potato and the corners of the squash are slightly rounded. To keep the kernels from breaking, when you stir, turn from the bottom with a wooden spoon just once, keeping a sheen on the surface of the hominy.

STEP 55 / 7

Return the meat and let the flavors meld

15 min

Returning tender meat to the hominy and bean soup and melding over low heat — Once the meat is back, cook over low heat so fat and broth coat the kernels

Cut the reserved meat and tripe to a size that is easy to eat and return them to the pot. Cook over low heat for 15 minutes, until fine bubbles show on the surface, so the fat of the meat and the sweetness of the beans meld. It is enough when small rings of oil float on the surface and the beef falls apart when pressed with a wooden spoon. Taste and add 1/2 tsp salt and 1/3 tsp black pepper.

STEP 66 / 7

Adjust the thickness with pasta

10 min

Adding small shell pasta to the hominy and meat soup to adjust the thickness — Add the short pasta near the end and cook over medium-low heat until the core is gone

Add 50 g short pasta and cook over medium-low heat for 8 to 10 minutes. It sinks to the bottom easily, so stir by stroking the bottom only once every 2 minutes. The guide is that the white core of the pasta has disappeared and the soup has a light body that thinly coats the wooden spoon. If it is too thick, add 100 ml boiling water; if too thin, simmer with the lid off over medium-low heat for 3 minutes.

STEP 77 / 7

Scatter the herbs and rest

8 min

A pot of mute finished with cilantro and scallion scattered on top — Scattering herbs after the heat is off leaves a green aroma in mute's heavy broth

Turn off the heat, add 15 g cilantro and the sliced scallion, and rest for 3 minutes. Put the meat in the center of the bowl with hominy, beans, and root vegetables visible around it, and serve with the remaining 5 g cilantro, lime, and avocado. If it tastes too salty, squeeze the lime first; if the fat feels heavy, use a little avocado, and it stays easy to eat to the end.

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Ingredients

1 / 2

Meat and broth

Ingredient	Amount	Notes
Beef shank or beef chuck	350 g	4 cm cubes. Bone-in beef ribs also work
Pork shoulder or pork belly block	220 g	3 cm cubes. For a fattier cut, 180 g is enough
Pre-cleaned honeycomb tripe	150 g	4 cm pieces. If you dislike it, replace with 150 g beef sinew
Onion	1/2 (100 g)	For the broth. Cut in half
Green part of a leek	1 stalk's worth	For the broth
Garlic	2 cloves (12 g)	Crushed
Bay leaf	1	For the broth
Water	1.4 L	Adjust so as not to exceed the pressure cooker's max fill line
Salt	1 tsp	For the broth. Add more at the end

2 / 2

Kernels, vegetables, and finish

Ingredient	Amount	Notes
Canned hominy	1 can (drained weight about 430 g)	Drain in a sieve
Canned chickpeas	150 g	Drained
Canned red kidney beans	120 g	Drained. White beans also work
Potatoes	2 (260 g)	2 cm cubes
Squash	180 g	2 cm cubes. Leave some of the skin on here and there
Carrot	1 (140 g)	1.5 cm cubes
Onion	1/2 (100 g)	1 cm dice
Leek or scallion	60 g	Sliced thinly
Garlic	2 cloves (12 g)	Finely chopped
Short pasta	50 g	Small shells, macaroni, or conchiglie
Annatto seed	1 tsp	1/2 tsp ground achiote also works
Cumin seed	1 tsp	3/4 tsp if ground
Paprika	1 tsp	Color help if the achiote is weak
Vegetable oil	2 tbsp	For bringing out the annatto's color
Black pepper	1/3 tsp	To finish
Cilantro	20 g	Roughly chopped
Lime	1	Cut into 4 wedges
Avocado	1	To serve

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Mute: A Thick Colombian Soup for a Weekend Pot

Late morning on a day off, beef and pork broth rises from the pot, and into it go white hominy, chickpeas, red beans, potatoes, and squash. The clear soup slowly turns a cloudy yellow, and when you stroke the bottom with a wooden spoon, the kernels and meat shift slowly. Mute is the kind of Colombian dish where you make up your mind: "today is the day to tend a pot."

Mute santandereano, known around Santander in Colombia, is a hearty soup combining corn, beans, beef, pork, mondongo (beef tripe), root vegetables, and short pasta. In a home kitchen it is hard to gather beef feet or whole local corn, so this article organizes it to be easy with canned hominy, beef shank, pork shoulder, and pre-cleaned honeycomb tripe.

Among Colombian soups, Bogotá's ajiaco (in Japanese) is a bowl enjoyed for the aroma of chicken and potatoes. Mute is earthier, a dish where you eat the texture of kernels and meat. Set beside the platter dish bandeja paisa (in Japanese), it shows that Colombian cooking is not only a country that "eats meat boldly" but a food culture that makes deep use of beans, corn, and aromatics.

The local name of mute

In Spanish it is written Mute, and the Santander version Mute santandereano. This article keeps the Santander framework as its axis while adjusting it into a pressure-cooker version that is easy to reproduce at home.

The Backbone of Mute's Ingredients to Protect

Hominy, beans, meat, root vegetables, and short pasta for mute laid out in a kitchen — Mute layers white hominy, beans, beef, pork, root vegetables, and short pasta in one pot

Traditional-cuisine materials from Colombia's Ministry of Culture treat mute as an emblematic soup of Santander and list beef mondongo and feet, white corn, chickpeas, potatoes, squash, and hogao. Local recipes also share a fairly common line of beef, pork, tripe, hominy, beans, carrot, potato, achiote, cumin, and short pasta.

Mute, though, is not a dish closed around a single right answer. By town and household there are differences: adding beef feet, adding chorizo, mixing in yellow corn, using guascas for aroma. What matters at home is not collecting every unusual cut but not breaking the following roles.

Role	Local representative	Realistic approach at home
Kernel core	maíz mute, maíz pelado	Canned hominy, or dried corn for pozole
Broth and gelatin	Beef feet, beef ribs, mondongo	Beef shank, beef sinew, pre-cleaned honeycomb tripe
Fat and body	Pork, chorizo	Pork shoulder, a little pork belly
Fluffiness	Potato, squash, beans	Russet potato, squash, chickpeas, red kidney beans
Color and aroma	Hogao, achiote, cumin	Scallion, onion, garlic, annatto seed, cumin

If you dislike tripe, you can leave it out and still get a delicious soup with beef shank and pork. But the chew and aroma of mondongo are part of what makes mute mute. For a first time, using only 150 g and letting meat and kernels star is a comfortable compromise.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Even pre-cleaned tripe gets blanched once at the start. For canned hominy, choose the large-kerneled white kind, not sweet corn, to get closer to mute's "soup you chew."

Ingredient and allergy notes

This uses beef, pork, tripe, beans, and wheat pasta. Tripe can retain an odor even when pre-cleaned, so blanch it over high heat and discard the water before the main simmer. If you are avoiding wheat, omit the pasta and add 80 g more potato.

Ingredients That Cause Confusion When Shopping

A shopping guide with hominy, annatto seed, beans, and a pressure cooker laid out in a kitchen — Secure canned hominy and annatto seed, and the kernel texture and color of mute are easier to reach in a home kitchen

The meat can be made from beef shank and pork shoulder from a supermarket. What causes confusion when shopping is hominy, annatto, and the pot used for long simmering. Replacing hominy with sweet corn changes the sweetness and the firmness of the kernels, and it becomes quite a different dish. Even a little annatto gives the soup a South American color, so it is worth getting once rather than settling for paprika alone.

Canned hominy saves the time of soaking dried corn. Do not put the canning liquid into the dish; drain it in a sieve before using, so the soup does not get too cloudy.

Annatto seed can be used without grittiness if you bring out its color in oil over low heat and then remove it. If you use achiote powder, it scorches easily, so add the onion about 30 seconds after it goes into the oil.

If you make it with dried corn or dried beans, a pressure cooker makes it suddenly realistic. This quantity can be made in an ordinary pot, but the tenderness of the meat and tripe is more consistent in a pressure cooker.

How to Make It: Soften the Meat Without Breaking the Kernels

Mute is a one-pot dish, but if you put everything in from the start, the kernels split and the meat stays tough. Layer it in the order of pre-boiling the meat, making the broth, the aromatic base, kernels and root vegetables, and the finish, and even canned hominy keeps its texture.

Fixing Watery or Too Heavy

Comparing watery mute with mute that has built its thickness — If mute is too watery the kernels float, and if over-reduced it turns heavy, so adjust the thickness along the way

Mute's failures are easy to see in the pot. If hominy sits in a thin, clear broth, the broth and root vegetables have not come together. Conversely, if the squash and potato have all broken down like porridge, you stirred too much or cooked too long.

State	Cause	Fix
Watery and bland	Too much broth, beans and root vegetables undercooked	Remove the lid and simmer 5 minutes over medium-low heat
Meat is tough	Pressure time too short, or the heat too high in an ordinary pot	Return only the meat and cook 20 more minutes over low heat
Tripe smell is strong	Not blanched enough	Next time, blanch for 5 minutes and put 2 tsp lime juice in the blanching water
Kernels split	Cooked over high heat, stirred too much	Add the hominy and beans from step 4 on, and cook quietly over low heat
Fat is heavy	Too much pork belly, beef sinew fat left on	Skim off about 2 tbsp of the oil from the surface and serve with lime

Local mute is a hearty, rich dish. Think of it not as a light soup like Japanese miso soup but as a main dish where you scoop up kernels with a spoon, and a little richness feels just right.

How It Is Eaten Locally and What to Serve

A table with mute served in a bowl alongside avocado, lime, arepa, and white rice — With avocado, lime, arepa, and white rice, mute becomes the main dish of the table

One bowl of mute is quite filling. With white rice, avocado, lime, and a Colombian arepa (in Japanese) alongside, it is enough for lunch. Rather than squeezing lime into the pot, having each person add it at the table lets them adjust the acidity.

Among other dishes of corn and beans, Kenya's githeri (in Japanese) is closer to a stir-fried stew, and Argentina's locro (in Japanese) is richer still with squash and beans. Mute sits between them, leaving enough liquid to drink as a soup while making meat and kernels the stars.

For a Colombian-themed day, rather than adding more starters, making mute the star with a small salad alongside is easier to eat. Leftover mute the next day, spooned over white rice, becomes a rich bean-filled rice porridge.

Storage and Reheating

Mute divided into shallow storage containers with the pot in the kitchen — Divide mute into shallow containers to cool, and add herbs and lime just before eating

Mute has a lot of meat and beans, so if left to cool in a deep pot, the temperature drops slowly. After eating, divide it into shallow storage containers and refrigerate once the heat is off. Treat 2 days in the refrigerator and 2 weeks in the freezer as the guide.

To reheat, return it to a pot, add 50 ml to 100 ml water or broth, and warm over low heat. Beans and pasta sink to the bottom, so stir once from the bottom before it boils. In a microwave, put it in a deep dish, heat at 600 W for 2 minutes, stir once, and add 1 more minute. Do not store the herbs, lime, and avocado; prepare them fresh just before eating, and the aroma comes back.

FAQ

Can I make it without tripe?

Yes. Use 150 g beef sinew, or add 150 g more beef shank. The elasticity and aroma of the tripe will be weaker, but as long as the backbone of hominy, beans, achiote, and cumin remains, it is plenty delicious as a mute-style Colombian soup.

Can I use sweet corn instead of canned hominy?

We do not recommend it. Sweet corn is quite sweet and its kernels lose firmness when simmered. If you must substitute, add only 100 g frozen corn kernels, not sweet corn as the main, and make up the kernel star with white beans or chickpeas, which comes together better.

What if I don't have achiote?

You can make up color and aroma with 1 tsp paprika, 1/4 tsp turmeric, and 1 tsp cumin. However, the redness and earthy aroma of achiote cannot be completely replaced. If you want to learn it as mute, use annatto seed from the second time on and you will see the difference.

How long does it take with dried beans and dried corn?

Soak dried chickpeas and dried corn in water the night before. In a pressure cooker, the guide is 20 to 25 minutes at high pressure; in an ordinary pot, 70 to 90 minutes over low heat. The aroma is deeper than the canned version, but for a first time, grasping the outline of the dish with canned hominy is less likely to fail.

Wrap-Up: Approach Mute in the Order of Kernels, Meat, and Aromatic Oil

Looking only at the ingredient list, mute makes you brace a little. Several meats, several beans, tripe, hominy, achiote, even pasta. But the axis of the method is simple: make broth with the meat, make the achiote aromatic oil, simmer the kernels and root vegetables without breaking them, and finally adjust the thickness with pasta. Keep to this order, and even in a home kitchen you can get quite close to Santander's thick soup.

Once you make it, the way you see Colombian cooking changes. Ajiaco's light highland soup, bandeja paisa's platter, arepa's corn dough. Put mute among them, and you see how meat, beans, corn, and herbs change form within the same country. If you do not want to make world cooking a one-time event, it is fun to keep pot dishes like this among your weekend options.

Sources

Mute's ingredient makeup, its place in Santander, household regional differences, and the treatment of tripe and hominy were organized by cross-checking the following materials.

Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia, Paseo de olla. Recetas de las cocinas regionales de Colombia
Colombia Sí Sabe, Mute santandereano
Recetas de mi Colombia, Mute Santandereano
My Colombian Recipes, Mute Santandereano (Santander-Style Soup)
Wikipedia en español, Mute