Vori Vori: Paraguay's Chicken Soup with Cornmeal Balls

By The Sunday Pot Kitchen Updated October 6, 2026

Prep25 min Cook1 hr 35 min Total⏱ 2 hr Yield🍽 6 servings Calories🔥 590 kcal

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• Six servings take 3 lb (1.4 kg) of bone-in chicken, 2 cups (300 g) of fine yellow cornmeal, 4 oz (115 g) of queso fresco and a little Parmesan
• Keep the dough at about 2 parts cornmeal to 1 part cheese by weight, as Paraguayan cooks do
• Bind the dough with about 1 cup (240 ml) of hot broth from the fatty top of the pot, never cold water
• Simmer the broth for 1 hour, then the balls for 10 to 12 minutes, until they float
• Keep the soup at a gentle simmer once the balls go in: a hard boil breaks them
• To freeze, freeze the broth and chicken, and make the balls fresh

Paraguayan vori vori in a wide rust-red stoneware bowl: thick golden chicken soup with round cornmeal and cheese balls, a browned chicken drumstick, cubes of squash, red pepper, scallions and parsley, a white enamel stockpot behind

Instructions

Brown the chicken Pat 3 lb (1.4 kg) of chicken dry with paper towels and season it with 1½ teaspoons of salt and the pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a 6-quart (5.7 liter) or larger pot over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken skin side down in 2 batches, for 5 to 6 minutes, then turn it and cook 2 minutes more. Move it to a plate.
Soften the vegetables Lower the heat to medium. Cook the onion, bell pepper and garlic in the fat left in the pot for 5 minutes, stirring, until soft. Add the tomatoes and cook 3 minutes more, until they break down.
Simmer the broth for 1 hour Return the chicken and its juices to the pot. Add the squash, the carrot if using, the bay leaf and 10 cups (2.4 liters) of hot water. Bring it to a boil, skim off any foam, then partly cover and simmer gently for 1 hour, until the chicken is tender.
Mix the dough In a bowl, mix 2 cups (300 g) of cornmeal with the queso fresco, the Parmesan, ½ teaspoon of oregano and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Ladle about 1 cup (240 ml) of hot broth from the top of the pot, where the fat collects, and stir it in a little at a time. Knead briefly. The dough is ready when it holds together when squeezed, like soft play dough. If it cracks, add broth by the tablespoon.
Shape the balls Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Roll pieces of about 1 tablespoon between your palms into 1-inch (2.5 cm) balls, about 45 in all, and set them on a plate. Wet your hands if the dough sticks.
Cook the balls Taste the broth and add salt if needed. Keep the soup at a gentle simmer, not a rolling boil. Drop in the balls one at a time, then simmer for 10 to 12 minutes without stirring hard, until they float. Cut one open: it should be soft and evenly yellow inside.
Finish and serve Take out the bay leaf. Stir in the remaining 1 teaspoon of oregano, the scallion greens and the parsley. The soup thickens as it stands, so add a little hot water if you like it thinner. Serve hot, with a piece of chicken in each bowl.

Vori vori is Paraguay’s best-loved soup: chicken broth with squash and peppers, thickened by little balls of cornmeal and fresh cheese. TasteAtlas users rated it the best dish in the world for 2025/26. This version takes one pot and about 2 hours, and serves 6.

What vori vori is

Vori vori is a thick, golden chicken soup. Its balls are made of cornmeal and crumbled fresh cheese, bound with hot broth from the pot. They soak up the broth without losing their shape, so the soup turns thick with no flour at all, as Diario HOY notes.

A name that means many little balls

The Spanish word bolita, little ball, became vorita in Guaraní, then simply vori. So explains the historian Margarita Miró Ibars in the Asunción magazine Cocina Rica. Saying it twice makes it plural: many little balls.

The researcher Graciela Martínez told Nicholas Gill of New Worlder that the recipe is a riff on the Spanish sopa de bolitas. When the balls are very small, Paraguayans call them tu’i rupi’a, parakeet eggs.

Hen, beef or cheese

Miró Ibars names 3 kinds. Vori ryguasu is made with chicken or hen broth, and is most prized with a farmyard hen. Vori so’o is made with beef. Vori kesu, the white cheese version, is for Lent, when there is no meat, and for the sick. Every kind gets whatever vegetables the cook has, with boiled mandioca (cassava) on the side.

Corn and cheese in Paraguay

Paraguayan food rests on maize, cassava and beef, the researcher Clemente Cáceres told Última Hora in 2017. The first Spaniards brought cheese, which the Guaraní did not know, he added.

The cheese in vori vori is queso Paraguay, a fresh cow’s-milk cheese made with raw milk and rennet. Cooks traditionally cure the rennet in sour orange juice, or in lemon juice, explains Cocina Rica. One dairy told Infonegocios in 2024 that its queso Paraguay sales triple before Holy Week.

When Paraguayans eat it

Vori vori is a main course for the cold months, from June to August in Paraguay. In Asunción, Monday lunch at the central markets is a tradition against the lunero, the Monday slump, Última Hora reported. Workers there tempt each other with “a vori vori with chicken”.

In 2017, Paraguay’s Secretariat of Culture declared vori vori part of the country’s intangible cultural heritage. Sopa paraguaya, locro and jopara joined it on the same list.

Why vori vori is in the news

In December 2025, TasteAtlas named vori vori the best dish in the world in its 2025/26 awards. It scored 4.64 out of 5, ahead of pizza napoletana at 4.58, Última Hora reported. The ranking drew on 453,720 user ratings of 11,781 dishes, La Nación wrote. TasteAtlas had already rated it the world’s best soup in 2023 and 2024.

It is still on top. In its September 2026 update, TasteAtlas put vori vori first among the world’s soups again, at 4.7, Diario HOY reported. Turkey’s beyran çorbası came second and Indonesia’s soto Betawi third, by LatiNation’s account. The Asunción Times covered the news in English.

These are ratings from TasteAtlas users, not a jury. The site says it counts only users who have tried a dish, and filters out bots.

A national day, by law

Paraguay has taken the prize to heart. On 11 August 2026, Congress passed a law that makes 14 April the national day of vori vori, Diario HOY reported. On 14 April 2026, the national tourism office handed out 1,600 free plates across the country. Tourists arriving in Paraguay already ask where to eat vori vori, the tourism minister Angie Duarte told Última Hora.

We found no figure for how many people cook vori vori outside Paraguay. North of the equator, the reason to make it now is simpler: soup season has begun.

What you need for vori vori

Chicken

Paraguayan cooks prize a farmyard hen, simmered for about 3 hours, as in the hen recipe from Cocina Rica. Bone-in, skin-on thighs and drumsticks give a rich broth in 1 hour. Do not rinse the raw chicken: the USDA warns that washing spreads bacteria around the kitchen. Pat it dry instead.

Fine yellow cornmeal

In Paraguay, cooks use a precooked yellow corn flour, Miró Ibars writes. Elsewhere, use fine yellow cornmeal. Coarse cornmeal makes the balls gritty and crumbly, warns Eats History.

Camila Benitez, who was born in Paraguay, uses P.A.N., a precooked corn flour sold for arepas, on Camila Made. Precooked flour drinks more broth, so add a little more.

Fresh cheese

Queso Paraguay is hard to find abroad. Gill suggests whole-milk ricotta or farmer’s cheese. Karl Lueck of Jabberwocky Stew found Parmesan alone too salty, and mozzarella too melty. He settled on queso fresco with some Parmesan, and so does this recipe.

Squash, pepper, tomato and scallions

Paraguayan recipes build the broth on zapallo, a winter squash, with onion, tomato and locote, the red bell pepper. Butternut squash or pumpkin stands in for zapallo. Scallion greens, parsley and oregano go in at the end.

A big pot

Use a pot of 6 quarts (5.7 liters) or more. The balls need room to float.

How to make vori vori balls that hold

We compared 12 recipes, 7 of them by Paraguayan cooks or published in Paraguay. All of them roll the balls by hand and drop them into simmering soup at the end.

About 2 parts cornmeal to 1 part cheese

By weight, the Paraguayan recipes use 2 to 2½ parts cornmeal to 1 part cheese. The Holy Week recipe in Última Hora uses 350 g of cornmeal, 150 g of queso Paraguay and 30 g of lard. Cocina Rica’s hen recipe uses 200 g to 80 g. This one uses 300 g of cornmeal to 135 g of cheese.

Bind with hot, fatty broth

Paraguayan cooks moisten the dough with hot broth from the pot. Última Hora’s recipe takes it from the surface, where the fat collects. Stop when the dough holds together when squeezed, soft but firm.

None of the 5 recipes published in Paraguay uses egg. The I Love Paraguay restaurant in Queens adds 1 egg to its dough, in a recipe it shared with ABC7 New York.

Roll them small

Sizes run from a marble, at I Love Paraguay, to a walnut. Benitez rolls 1-inch (2.5 cm) balls from about 1 tablespoon of dough. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes first, as she does.

Simmer gently until they float

The balls cook in 5 to 12 minutes, and they are done when they float. Keep the soup at a gentle simmer, Benitez warns: high heat can break them before they set.

Variations: hen, beef, cheese and milk

With a hen

Use a stewing hen in pieces, and simmer it for about 3 hours before you add the balls. Top up with hot water as the broth reduces.

Vori so’o, with beef

Use 2 lb (900 g) of beef shank or soup bones instead of chicken. Simmer for 2½ to 3 hours, until the meat is tender.

Vori kesu, with no meat

Make the broth with the vegetables alone, and add 2 cups (480 ml) of whole milk with the balls. A Paraguayan grandmother on Cookpad adds ½ liter of milk and butter beans this way.

More cheese

Cocina Rica’s chicken version stirs 200 g of grated queso Paraguay into the pot at the end. For the same effect, stir in 1 cup (115 g) of grated Monterey Jack just before serving.

Shredded chicken

Some cooks pull the chicken off the bone and return the meat to the pot. It makes the soup easier to eat, and easier to share out.

Serving and storing vori vori

Serve vori vori hot, with a piece of chicken in each bowl and boiled mandioca on the side. A bowl of grated Parmesan at the table suits it too, as TasteAtlas suggests. For another creamy chicken dish from South America, try Peruvian ají de gallina. For another Sunday soup, there is golumpki soup. To follow it, a slow-roasted lamb kleftiko feeds the same 6 people.

Leftovers

Follow the USDA’s advice on leftovers:

Divide the soup into smaller containers, so it cools quickly, and refrigerate it within 2 hours.
Eat it within 3 to 4 days, or freeze it for 3 to 4 months.
Reheat it to a rolling boil.

The balls keep drinking broth in the fridge, so add hot water when you reheat. To freeze vori vori, freeze the broth and chicken alone, and roll fresh balls on the day. Jenny of Jenny is baking also finds fresh balls better than reheated ones.

Is the chicken done?

After 1 hour of simmering, it will be. The USDA’s safe minimum for all poultry is 165°F (74°C), checked with a food thermometer.

Calories and protein

One serving, a sixth of the pot with skin-on chicken, has about 590 calories, 37 g of protein and 25 g of fat. It has about 51 g of carbohydrate, 4 g of fiber and 950 mg of sodium. These are estimates from USDA figures, with queso fresco standing in for queso Paraguay.

Allergens and gluten

The cheese holds milk, one of the major food allergens the FDA lists. Vori vori has no wheat flour. If you avoid gluten, check that your cornmeal is labeled gluten-free.

Fixes for balls that crumble, sink or turn hard

Balls fall apart: the dough was too dry, or the soup was boiling hard. Add hot broth to the rest of the dough, and lower the heat.
Balls are hard and dense: too much cornmeal for the cheese. Next time, add 1 more ounce (30 g) of cheese and a little more broth.
Balls are gritty: the cornmeal was coarse. Use fine cornmeal or precooked corn flour.
Balls are raw in the middle: they were too big. Simmer 3 to 5 minutes more after they float.
Soup is too thick: stir in hot water, ½ cup (120 ml) at a time.
Soup is bland: add salt to the broth, and pass grated Parmesan at the table.

Substitutes for missing ingredients

Queso Paraguay: queso fresco with a little Parmesan, or farmer’s cheese.
Fine yellow cornmeal: precooked corn flour such as P.A.N., with a little more broth.
A farmyard hen: bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and drumsticks.
Zapallo: butternut squash, pumpkin or kabocha.
Locote: a red bell pepper.
Lard in the dough: 1 tablespoon of the chicken fat from the pot, or vegetable oil.
Fresh parsley: more scallion greens.

Frequently asked questions

What does vori vori mean?

It comes from bolita, Spanish for little ball, which became vori in Guaraní. Saying it twice means many little balls.

What is vori vori made of?

Chicken broth with squash, onion, pepper and tomato, and balls of cornmeal and fresh cheese. Oregano and scallions finish it.

Why is vori vori called the best dish in the world?

TasteAtlas users rated it first of 11,781 dishes in the 2025/26 awards, with 4.64 out of 5. In September 2026 it topped the site’s soup ranking again.

Is vori vori gluten-free?

It has no wheat flour. Check that your cornmeal is labeled gluten-free if you need it to be.

What cheese can I use instead of queso Paraguay?

Queso fresco with a little Parmesan, or farmer’s cheese. Mozzarella alone melts too much.

Why do my vori vori balls fall apart?

The dough was too dry, or the soup boiled too hard. Bind it with more hot broth and keep the soup at a gentle simmer.

How big should the balls be?

About 1 inch (2.5 cm), from 1 tablespoon of dough. Smaller balls cook faster.

Can I freeze vori vori?

Freeze the broth and chicken for up to 3 to 4 months, and roll fresh balls when you reheat it.

What do you serve with vori vori?

Boiled mandioca, as in Paraguay, or crusty bread. Grated Parmesan at the table is optional.

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