What Is Masa? An Expert In Mexican Cuisine Describes Its Origins and How to Cook It
And how is it different from masa harina?
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If you’ve ever tried to make homemade tortillas or tamales, you’ve likely come across masa and masa harina. But what exactly is masa, and how is it different from masa harina? To break it down for us, we consulted Barbara Sibley, CEO and chef-owner of Mexican restaurants La Palapa and La Palapa Taco Bar and creative director of Holiday Cocktail Lounge in New York City.
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What Is Masa?
Masa, a staple of Mexican and Latin American cuisine, is dough made from ground corn that has been softened by soaking in alkali. Masa can be used to make dishes such as tortillas, tamales, tostadas, sopes, gorditas and tetelas, to name just a few.
“The word masa basically means dough. It originates from the Latin word that means mass and something that can be shaped,” Sibley explains.
What Is the Origin of Masa?
“With the popularity of Mexican cuisine in the United States, the word masa has become synonymous with the corn dough that is used to make tortillas but the use and origins are more complex,” Sibley says. “Milling this [corn] into a dough that can be used to cook with is difficult and used to be done by hand, usually on a metate or grinding stone with a long, oval metlapil, as is traditional in Mexico and Mesoamerica, or pounded into corn flour in areas of Colombia and Venezuela."
Sibley shares that in South America, masa tends to rely less on nixtamalization and is made of soaked and ground corn. “This has a different flavor and is made into cakes called arepas that are thinner or thicker and filled with meats and cheese in Venezuela and more likely just cheese in Colombia.”
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What Is Nixtamalization?
Nixtamalization is the process of treating corn with an alkaline solution to turn it into nixtamal, a product that is more pliable, nutritious and palatable. Nixtamalization comes from the Nahuatl words nixta, for ash, and tamal, or cooked dough.
Sibley shares that in Mexico, the corn is soaked in water with cal, calcium hydroxide or other alkalis, and that sometimes ash of certain plants and charred tequesquite rocks are used to produce the alkaline mixture. The process releases the corn’s pectin which gives tortillas their elasticity and it also imparts a taste and aroma that is distinctive and varies with the amount of cal and length of soaking used.
“The process not only softens the outer hull, allowing more water to be absorbed by the corn, but also unlocks important nutrients such as tryptophan that humans convert into niacin, protein, iron, copper and zinc,” Sibley says. “In addition, the calcium in the calcium hydroxide is also absorbed as a nutrient. This is relevant as when Europeans used corn as a staple post colonialization, malnutrition such as pellagra afflicted the population.”
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What Is Masa Harina?
Masa harina is a finely ground flour that is made from dehydrated masa (dough) made from corn that has been softened with alkali, sometimes known as hominy. Masa harina is used for making Mexican and southwestern dishes such as breads, tamales and tortillas.
“Masa harina was developed in the 1950’s by taking masa of freshly ground corn and dehydrating it to create a flour that could be reconstituted with water and form masa ready for tortillas,” Sibley explains. “This process had been used since the 1860’s in Venezuela with cooked corn that was then ground and dehydrated.”
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What’s the Difference Between Masa Harina, Corn Flour and Cornmeal?
Masa Harina, corn flour and cornmeal are all products made from ground corn, but the way they are made and some of their culinary applications differ.
How they're made: Corn flour and cornmeal are made from ground dent corn, whereas masa harina is made from dehydrated ground masa that is made from nixtamalized corn. The process of nixtamalization—whereby dried corn kernels are soaked in an alkaline solution—gives masa harina a distinct savory flavor and a structure that gives tortillas their elasticity.
How they're used: Cornmeal, corn flour and masa harina can all be used as a coating for fried foods. Cornmeal is most often used in breads or cooked as polenta whereas corn flour is used to make Colombian and Venezuelan arepas, in baked goods such as muffins, pancakes and biscuits and as a binding agent for dishes like meatloaf or meatballs. Masa harina is used to create a variety of dishes such as tamales, sopes, tostadas and more.
Masa Harina Substitutes
“As tortillas need to have elasticity and the taste that the nixtamal brings, there is no substitute for masa harina other than fresh masa,” Sibley says. This is why other corn-based products like corn flour, corn meal or polenta are not suitable substitutes for masa harina.
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How to Cook Masa
Once the dough is made, masa can be cooked in a variety of shapes and sizes and filled with an array of fillings. “To cook masa into tortillas the griddle needs to be extremely hot, about 550 degrees, which is why one uses a comal that is very thin metal or a terra cotta that can be heated to high temperatures,” Sibley says. “The process takes skill and sometimes a start would be to make sopes or chalupas which are thicker and easier to form.
Corn masa has pectin and is gluten-free, but Sibley cautions that it can’t be used as a baking substitute as its protein structure is too dense. However, she says that masa can be used in baking to provide the distinctive nixtamal flavor to biscuits and other baked goods.
Recipes for Masa
This brunch-ready dish riffs on Mexican bocoles, savory corn masa cakes. Here, masa harina is stirred with warm milk and butter, salt, sugar and queso fresco to form a dough then pressed into rounds for frying. The fried corn cakes are then topped with runny eggs, salsa, cheese and avocado.
Teri Lyn Fisher
For our take on this traditional Mexican dish, pork shoulder filling is cooked low and slow in an aromatic sauce redolent of dried chiles, then wrapped in a fluffy, tender masa dough. For more tamale-making techniques and tips, check out our primer How to Make Tamales.
Anna Williams
Tender dumplings made with masa harina and butter (in place of the typical lard) simmer in a pork-bean chili with warming spices like cumin, cloves and ancho to create a hearty, feeds-a-crowd meal.
Levi Brown
This twist on a classic Mexican breakfast dish starts with making corn tortillas from scratch using masa harina and adding in chopped bacon. The toppings are up to you, but we highly recommend extra bacon to accompany homemade salsa, fried eggs and cotija cheese.
Matt Armendariz
Hallacas are a traditional Venezuelan Christmas dish in which masa gets folded and stuffed with a meaty stew and a smattering of garnishes. The masa in this recipe calls for pre-cooked white cornmeal (arepa flour), achiote, homemade chicken broth, oil and salt.
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