How to Eat Guava This Summer

We love including sweet guava in drinks, desserts, and savory dishes. The tropical fruit is grown in India, Mexico, the Caribbean, South America, and Central America, and featured in dishes and drinks from those cuisines and others. We love it fresh, juiced, or cooked down to sweet-tangy guava paste that makes it available year-round. Here are a few recipes to get the most out of guava season, from a couple of bright cocktails to an irresistible barbecue sauce, rich bread pudding, and delectable guava quesitos that come together in minutes (and that we can’t stop eating).

Guava Goddess

Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling by Lucy Simon

Evie Negri-Albert developed this tropical, batchable cocktail for a crowd with bright guava juice and lime juice, bitter Aperol, nutty orgeat, and blanco tequila.

Guava Quesitos

Christopher Testani / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Christina Daley

Brandon Ivan Peña fills puff pastry with cream cheese and sweet guava paste for these classic Puerto Rican treats.

Guava Ponche with Sweet Vermouth

DYLAN + JENI

Paola Briseño González chills her riff on Ponche Navideño, a spiced tropical fruit punch that’s served warm with a shot of tequila in Mexico at Christmastime. She uses guava, apples, hibiscus, and mint for the light, bright, fragrant and refreshing vermouth cocktail with perfectly balanced bitterness.

Rum-and-Guava-Glazed Spareribs

Greg Dupree / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer and Melissa Gray / Prop Styling by Audrey Taylor

In the Caribbean, barbecue maestros use tropical fruits like passion fruit, guava, and pineapple to add a layer of fruitiness and sweetness to their barbecue, especially in their sauces. Chef Nelson German of Alamar Kitchen & Bar in Oakland, California, channels memories of guava in sweet and savory dishes in his Dominican household with his barbecue sauce rooted in guava.

Guava and Cheese Bread Pudding

Photo by Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Lydia Pursell

Paola Velez says guava and cheese are as meant to be as PB&J, celebrating the duo in this budin de pan recipe that originated with Velez’s husband’s 101-year-old grandmother. She uses an excess of evaporated milk for the lavish custard and has tips for the homemade caramel.

Guava and Cheese Pasteles

Photo by Greg DuPree / Food Styling by Ali Ramee / Prop Styling by Christine Keely

Velez stuffs squares of puff pastry with guava paste and cream cheese for these creamy, crispy, sweet, and tangy pastelitos, pastelillos, or turnovers.

Chinese-Style Ribs with Guava Barbecue Sauce

Raichlen makes a rub with sugar, salt, dry mustard, Chinese five-spice powder, pepper, cinnamon and cloves, and then sprays baby back ribs with sherry in intervals as they grill over a drip pan. The ribs are glazed with a sticky barbecue sauce made with guava paste and rum, inspired by Miami.