The 5 Best Arepa Fillings (2025)

You can not talk about Venezuelan cooking without mentioning arepas. Every Venezuelan knows what it feels to wake up every morning with the smell of recently made arepas. This has to be the best feeling of the world.

You can fill your arepa with infinite variety of food. The are lots of possibilities. I guess that is part of the charm of arepas; you can always reinvent the classics and make it better.

In Venezuela we usually eat arepa for the breakfast, but it’s not limited to it. Now, the rest of the world knows arepas as street food and it’s perfectly understandable why.

You can —should— eat it without cutlery and fancy dishes. You only need a napkin and the ability to eat with your hand without making a mess — I don’t have that superpower but I gladly lose my elegance to eat a delicious arepa.

To make a classical Venezuelan arepa you only need to get Harina Pan. Harina Pan is a precooked corn flour that is the base of the arepas dough. In the EU you can get it in any Latin American store. In some states, it’s common to find it in large store chains like Costco in Florida- you know Miami is basically the capital of South America.

After you get your Harina pan, now it is time to make arepa. You can make them fry or grilled. The classical way is grilled in a budare, but you can use a nonstick pan or a grill. In some parts of Venezuela like Margarita or Cumaná, arepas are fried. Usually, they fry it because they fill the arepas with fish — Margarita is an island and Cumaná has access to the Caribbean Sea. For some reason, fried arepas go a lot better with tuna or cazon.

So let’s learn now how Venezuelan cook their favorite food.

How to make the arepa dough?

I’ve already made an entire article about how to make authentic arepas. But here is the recipe card in case you want to see the recipe instructions.

These Are the 5 Best Arepa Fillings

These are the top 5 of arepa recipes that every Venezuelan knows and loves.

Reina Pepiada (chicken and avocado)

A creamy mix of shredded chicken with ripped avocado. This is going to be the holy grail for those avocado lovers.

Carne mechada (Shredded beef)

Soft flank steak slow cooked with a rich sauce. The shredded meat will mince into your mouth. This arepa goes perfectly with some Guasacaca ( Venezuelan avocado cream).

Dominó (black beans and cheese)

This particular filling is called that way for sharing the colors of a domino piece. This filing is the simple combination of black beans with white shredded cheese. Divine!

A good variation is refried black beans. They have a thicker texture and the beans are smashed to create a paste texture.

Atún (tuna)

The easiest arepa filling. This is the most common arepa in my house. You can prepare a normal arepa but i highly suggest you to prepare a fried arepa to get an out-of-this-world result.

Pollo guisado (shredded chicken)

A rich tomato based sauce that goes perfectly with shredded chicken. This filling also goes well with some guasacaca.

I hope you enjoy these delicious recipes from my homeland. We love arepa and now that Venezuelan are all around the world we want to conquer the food industry with tons of arepas.

You can always reinterpret this classical of the Venezuelan food and make it your own. As I said before the magic of the arepas is their versatility. Now go and make a bunch of them and try a different filling every time. You will never get bored.

See you soon! 🙂