Recipes for Achiote Pork Tenderloin and more

The spice world is rich with ingredients that transform dishes through aroma and taste, and there are some spices that also deliver vibrant color.

Annatto seed is one such spice that imparts both delicious flavors and a transformative hue.

Known across Latin America and the Caribbean as achiote, this tiny, brick-red seed is an oft-overlooked workhorse. Often absent in today’s home kitchens, annatto is a foundational ingredient in traditional Mexican cuisine and Indigenous cultures.

Annatto seeds are harvested from the Achiote tree, native to tropical regions of Central and South America. Widely referred to as the “lipstick tree,” Achiote trees’ annatto seeds were historically used to make body paint and fabric dye.

In modern food processing, annatto seeds became known as “poor man’s sa