Sancocho is the Colombian Sunday pot, and this is its most generous version: beef, pork and chicken together, which is what the name trifásico refers to. The catch is that they do not go in together. Beef and pork start in cold water and the chicken joins three quarters of an hour later, because it cooks in 75 minutes what takes the others two hours. Eight bowls at 660 calories, and it feeds a crowd.
How do you make sancocho trifásico? Start 1.1 lb of beef and 1.1 lb of pork in 3 quarts of cold water and skim for ten minutes. Add chicken and corn at the 45-minute mark, cassava and plantain at 75, potatoes at 95. Finish with cilantro and serve with a piece of every meat in each bowl. 145 minutes, 8 servings.
What to buy for each meat
Nothing here is hard to find. Beef short ribs are the easiest cut to get right — bone-in, well marbled, and forgiving over two hours. Bone-in flank or chuck works too. For the pork, spare ribs cut into sections give both fat and flavour; country-style ribs are a fine stand-in.
For the chicken, buy thighs and drumsticks with the bone in and leave the skin on or off as you prefer. Boneless breast is the one thing that will not work: it has no collagen and no bone, so it turns dry and stringy in half the time.
Cassava is sold as yuca in Latin markets and as manioc elsewhere, and frozen chunks are genuinely fine. Green plantains are the hard, dark-green ones. The small yellow potatoes called papa criolla appear frozen in Latin markets; baby Yukon Golds are close enough.
Three meats, three different clocks
Beef and pork are full of collagen, which needs roughly two hours of gentle heat to turn into the gelatin that gives a broth its body. Chicken has almost none, and its muscle fibres start letting go around the 80-minute mark.
That mismatch is the whole reason for the staggering. The beef and pork open the pot, the chicken comes in at 45 minutes, and all three arrive at the table ready at the same moment, which is the point of the dish: every bowl gets a piece of each.
The corn goes in with the chicken for a different reason. Over 75 minutes it releases sugars into the broth, and that sweetness is what balances the fat from the pork ribs. Added at the end it contributes nothing but texture.
Keeping the broth clear
Two things cloud a sancocho and both happen early. The first is the grey foam the meats release as they warm — coagulated proteins that break into particles and stay suspended if you do not lift them off during the first 10 minutes.
The second is boiling too hard. At a rolling boil the fat from the pork and beef is beaten into the liquid instead of floating on it, and an emulsified broth cannot be strained clear afterwards. Hold the pot where the surface only trembles, around 195°F.
If it does go cloudy, it is not ruined. Rest it 10 minutes off the heat, skim the fat that rises, and serve it: the flavour is untouched and only the look has changed.
The order, and where the time goes
Five entries in two hours, then 25 minutes to serve. There is a hierarchy among the starches inside that sequence: the small yellow potatoes are meant to fall apart and thicken the broth, the larger potatoes hold, the cassava splits into fibres if it goes past 50 minutes, and the green plantain — which looks like the toughest thing in the pot — softens before the cassava does.
Make it ahead
Cook it to the 75-minute mark, with the meats in and no roots yet, and refrigerate. The fat sets on top overnight and lifts off in one piece, and the next day you bring it back to a simmer and add the roots for their final 45 minutes. It is the easiest way to serve this to eight people without spending the morning at the stove.
Who this recipe is for
- You are feeding a crowd — 8 bowls from one pot, mostly unattended
- You have made sancocho with hen before — this is the richer, three-meat cousin
- You like a broth with body — the collagen from two bone-in cuts does that work
- You want leftovers with a second life — strained broth and shredded meat is the next day’s soup
- You shop at a regular US or UK supermarket — short ribs, spare ribs and chicken thighs cover it
What goes wrong
All three meats at once. The chicken disintegrates 45 minutes before the beef gives.
Skipping the skim. The foam breaks up and leaves the broth permanently cloudy.
Boiling hard. The fat emulsifies and will not clear again.
All the roots together. The potato dissolves while the cassava is still hard.
Salting at the start. Two hours of reduction turns correct seasoning into a salty pot.
Variations
Valluno style. The same three meats with 4 plantains and the broth ladled over rice.
Caribbean style. With yam and coconut milk in the last stretch, and no potato.
Oxtail. Swap the short ribs for 1.1 lb of oxtail for a noticeably more gelatinous broth.
With small whole plantains. Guineo, left whole, common in Antioquia because it holds its shape.
What to serve with it
White rice on the side, sliced avocado, a homemade ají of tomato, onion, cilantro and lime, and lime wedges. A serving is about 9 oz of meat plus the roots, and with the rice it is a complete lunch.
Among Colombia’s big pots, Colombian sancocho is the single-meat version with a cleaner broth, Colombian puchero serves its broth separately in a cup, and cocido boyacense swaps the lowland roots for Andean tubers. For dessert after a pot like this, Colombian buñuelos or natilla.
Frequently asked questions
Why is it called trifásico? For the three meats in the pot: beef, pork and chicken.
Can I add all three meats at once? Not if you want three meats at the end. The chicken needs 75 minutes and the beef 120.
Why did my broth turn cloudy? Either it was not skimmed in the first 10 minutes or it boiled too hard.
Can I make it ahead? Yes, up to the 75-minute mark without the roots. Add those when you reheat.
What potatoes should I use? Waxy ones that hold their shape, plus 2 small yellow ones that break down and thicken the broth.
Nutrition
Per bowl, one eighth of the pot with broth, all three meats and the roots, calculated from each ingredient according to the USDA SR Legacy database:
- Calories: 660 kcal
- Protein: 44 g
- Carbohydrates: 80 g
- Fat: 19 g, 7 g of it saturated
- Fibre: 6 g
- Sodium: 660 mg
This is a whole lunch rather than a starter: 44 g of protein a bowl, more than anything else on this site. The carbohydrates come from the plantain, cassava, potato and corn together, and a half portion with rice on the side lands near 330 calories.
At home this is a gathering dish, never a Tuesday one, and I learned the staggering the hard way. The first time I made it I put all three meats in together, because the order looked like fussiness, and the chicken ended up as threads in the broth. The second time I waited the 45 minutes. Josnaisis.