The Best Bread In Puerto Rico Can Be Found At Your Local Grocery Store

There's a warm, playful touch to nearly everything in Puerto Rico. The water in Mosquito Bay glows with bioluminescence, and wild horses wander free on Vieques Island. San Juan is an old pirate haven with blue brick streets, and the cuisine is a delightful collection of leaf-wrapped pasteles and other Puerto Rican dishes you absolutely need to try. Among the food trucks slinging mofongo and the seaside cantinas with their fresh seafood is an island legend, a bakery named Cidrines that has found fame throughout the Caribbean and the U.S. East Coast for its two-loaf packs of pan sobao bread. Locals and visitors both love it, and you don't have to travel all the way to the Island of Enchantment to get a couple of loaves.

Cidrines' soba sweet bread has been branded the "Best Bread In Puerto Rico," and has been a favorite in Puerto Rico for decades. It's light and fluffy with a baguette or hoagie-style shape and a melt-in-your-mouth texture, perfect for sandwiches, toast, and snacking. It's a solid foundation for a classic Puerto Rican meal, like sandwich de mezcla with that iconic Spam and cream cheese filling. Over the years, pan sabao has become a household staple on the island, and it's also been on grocery store shelves in the U.S. since 2013.

If you're bringing the flavors of Puerto Rico to your table at home, you need to put Cidrines pan sobao bread on your shopping list. This bread can serve as an appetizer or alongside some asopao de pollo, or used to make tripletas. You'll also want to grab sazón, the savory spice that gives Puerto Rican food its signature golden color, along with all the ingredients you'd need for this pork mofongo recipe.

In America, you can find Cidrines pan sobao bread at some Walmart, Winn-Dixie, Kroger, and Publix stores, as well as in some regional grocery stores in Florida and select independent grocers country-wide. The bread is sold in packs of two pre-baked loaves that weigh about 14 ounces, together. Most of the grocery stores that sell Cidrines pan sobao bread seem to stock the sweet bread more than other varieties. This type is a customer favorite, with a light sweetness that makes it delicious and still versatile enough to pair with anything.