Although Adán Medrano spent much of his childhood in his mother’s Central Texas kitchen, surrounded by the smells of sweet pork empanadas baking in the oven and nopales sautéed with onion, there was much he didn’t know about his family’s native cuisine. So, following his graduation from Creighton University, he traveled to Mexico City and Oaxaca before launching his culinary career in Houston. South of the border, he was surrounded by Indigenous ingredients such as chayote root, fava beans, and hoja santa—a tropical herb identifiable by its massive heart-shaped leaves and a flavor akin to anise and sarsaparilla.
A novelty to Medrano at the time, it’s long been a staple of Mexican cuisine, where it’s often used to wrap whitefish or tamales. Native to Mesoamerica—from central and southern Mexico all the way to Colombia—hoja santa has become a standard in Texas gardens, where its thick stalks and velvety leaves have thrived in the state’s hot, humid weather.
“I always have an hoja santa bush in my garden,” says Medrano, who has featured the licorice-y herb in his many cookbooks and acclaimed films that focus on the history of Texas Mexican cuisine. “It grows very quickly, and I keep it around to accentuate flavors in all my cooking.”
Where to Find
Hoja Santa
One of the best ways to ensure year-round access to hoja santa is to grow the plant yourself.
Small Town Farm, a plant nursery outside Martindale, sells hoja santa in 1-gallon pots at the San Marcos Farmers Market and online at smalltownfarm.com
Also known as the root beer plant, the herb’s presence in Texas can be traced to at least the early 1980s, when chef Stephan Pyles famously served it in a steamed salmon dish at a luncheon for Julia Childs at Routh Street Cafe in Dallas. While it is usually served hot, Medrano prefers to use it in cold salads with frisée and fennel seeds. The key, according to the chef, is marinating the leaves in a mixture of oil, citrus, and vinegar to break down the tough outer layer.
Anastacia Quiñones-Pittman of José, a regional Mexican restaurant in the Briarwood neighborhood of Dallas, admittedly hates the taste of licorice—yet she loves hoja santa. The chef utilizes the herb in seasonal aguachiles, such as one with ahi tuna, blackberries, chiltepín, and lime juice. And while Quiñones-Pittman mainly uses hoja santa in savory dishes, the James Beard Award semifinalist says the herb is underutilized in desserts. At her now-shuttered Alma, the chef showcased its unique flavor profile in a simple syrup drizzled over a queso fresco cheesecake.
“It tricks your mind by thinking it’s sweet, kind of like mint,” she says. “You taste mint and you think whatever you’re eating with it is going to be sweet, but it’s not. And that’s why it works really well with both vegetables and fruits like strawberry and watermelon.”
Enjoying this article?One of the best ways to taste hoja santa might be through the leaf-shrouded goat cheese at Mozzarella Cheese Company. As a cheesemaker, founder Paula Lambert was well aware of European traditions of wrapping chevre in brandy-soaked chestnut leaves. So, in 1997, she attempted the same thing with a plant growing closer to her Dallas home. Although Texas customers were initially slow to warm to Lambert’s innovation, she found advocates in New York distributors Daphne Zepos and Max McCalman, who placed it in restaurants across the country.
Today, the cheese is highly decorated, having won four international food awards in Bergamo, Italy—one of few domestic cheese producers to receive the prestigious recognition. More importantly, Texans have come around as well.
“It got so popular, we couldn’t keep up with demand,” Lambert says. “People all around Dallas started growing hoja santa in their gardens for us. I had to trade them cheese for some of their cuttings. Still today, we barter with customers for hoja santa. It’s a magical, mystical plant.”
