Baleada is one of the most famous Honduran dishes consisting of a thick wheat flour tortilla filled with mashed fried beans and optionally, various other ingredients such as cheese, eggs, avocados, hot sauce, and Honduran-style sour cream known as mantequilla.
It is believed that baleada originated in La Ceiba, on the northern coast. There are two theories about the origin of the name baleada: one says that it is named after the visual similarities between beans and bullets (bala in Spanish), while the other says that a tortilla-making woman was shot with several bullets, but recovered, and started to make tortillas again, so the workers used to say they are going to the baleada (the shot woman).
This recipe is adapted from Honduras.com, a promotional website of the Honduran Chamber of Tourism. The recipe makes approximately 12 servings, two tortillas per serving. For the simplest baleada, fill the tortillas with mashed refried red beans, grated Honduran hard white cheese, and mantequilla crema, a form of Honduran sour cream.