North America → Panama → Panama City
🥤 DRINK

Chicheme

Panama's creamy corn drink: soaked broken corn simmered tender, then sweetened with milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla, served cold or warm.
Panamanian · easy · serves 6
prep 15 min · cook 90 min · plus 8 h hands-off time
~201 cal · 6g protein · 32g carbs · 6g fat · 1g fiber · 24g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Glass of creamy chicheme with soft corn kernels and nutmeg
AI-generated illustration
Chicheme is a creamy corn drink found only in Panama, most famous from the town of La Chorrera in the west, where it is practically an institution. Somewhere between a drink and a spoonable corn porridge, it is enjoyed ice cold on a hot day and warm on a cool one.
Dried broken corn (maíz pilado, or dried ) is soaked overnight, then simmered slowly with a cinnamon stick until tender and the water turns starchy. Evaporated milk, sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg go in to finish, and some cooks stir in condensed milk or blend a little of the corn to make it extra creamy. The result is rich, gently sweet, and speckled with soft, chewy kernels of corn.
Rooted in the corn that Panama's Indigenous peoples held sacred, chicheme is a meal you drink. Made with oat or it works just as well without dairy.
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Make it yours

✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.

Ingredients

Serves 6
  • 2 cups dried broken corn (maíz pilado) or dried
  • 5 cups water
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 can evaporated milk
  • 1/2 cup sugar, or to taste
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • to taste freshly grated nutmeg

Instructions

  • 1
    Rinse the dried corn and soak it in water overnight, then drain.
    ✎ Chef’s note
    The overnight soak is what lets the corn cook to tenderness; skip it and you are simmering for hours.
  • 2
    Simmer the corn with the fresh water and cinnamon stick until tender and the liquid turns starchy, about an hour to ninety minutes, topping up the water as needed.
  • 3
    Stir in the evaporated milk, sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg and simmer another fifteen minutes.
  • 4
    Serve warm as a porridge, or chill and serve ice cold, adding a little more milk if it thickens too much.
Panama City (La Chorrera) tradition.

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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination

📍
Panama City. Panama City simmers sancocho, a chicken stew with yam and the pungent local herb culantro, treated as a cure for everything. Its position between oceans and continents shows in ceviche, rice with coconut, and fried plantain at nearly every meal.
🗺️
Panama. Panama's cuisine reflects its crossroads geography, sancocho chicken soup, rice dishes, and fried corn tortillas, with Afro-Caribbean coconut cooking on the coast. Plantain, root vegetables, and seafood anchor the plate.
🌍
North America. Almost every regional cooking here records who arrived and on what terms. Enslaved West Africans brought rice, okra, black-eyed peas and the techniques behind Lowcountry and Creole food; Chinese railway labour and later Italian, Jewish, Mexican and Vietnamese arrivals built the way the cities eat; and Indigenous foodways sit underneath all of it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.

More from Panama

Sancocho de GallinaA restorative hen soup with yam, yuca, and a mountain of culantro, Panama’s cure for everything from hangovers to heartbreak.
Tortilla Panameña con QuesoA thick, crisp-fried corn cake, not a thin tortilla at all, split hot and stuffed with melting white cheese, a staple Panamanian breakfast.
Ceviche PanameñoDiced corvina cured in lime with onion, celery, and habanero, the fish-market lunch sold in cups across Panama City.
Browse all Panama recipes →

Good to know

Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.

Make it a Panama meal

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Frequently asked questions

What is Chicheme?

Panama's creamy corn drink: soaked broken corn simmered tender, then sweetened with milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla, served cold or warm.

Where does Chicheme come from?

Chicheme is a Panamanian dish from Panama City, Panama.

Can Chicheme be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?

This Chicheme recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.

Is Chicheme safe for people with food allergies?

Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.

How long does Chicheme take to make?

About 9 h 45 min in all: 15 minutes prep and 90 minutes cooking, plus 8 h of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 6.

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