This article is about cabbage and corn salad food dish. For the mountain peak, see Păpuşa.

There is no definite explanation for the origin of the word. It is possible that the word stems from the verb pupusawa which means ‘to puff up’, but there is no known current or historical use of this word within the communities. El Salvador and Honduras both claim to be the birthplace of the pupusa. Salvadoran archeologist Roberto Ordóñez attributed the creation of the pupusa to the Pipil people due to the name meaning ‘swollen’ in the Pipil language. The topic of the pupusa’s origin also came up during the negotiation for the CAFTA-DR. Both nations wanted to make the pupusa an exclusive export. After two days, the Honduran delegation ceded the right to El Salvador.

Traditional pupusas in El Salvador are cooked over wood fire, using a pottery griddle called a comal. Pupusas have been linked to the Pipil tribes who inhabited the territory now known as El Salvador. A version of the pre-Columbian pupusa was vegetarian and half-moon shaped. In the late 1940s, pupusas were still not widespread across El Salvador and were mostly localized in the central towns. They were documented previously in Guatemala and Honduras. In the 1980s, the Salvadoran civil war forced a Salvadoran migration to other countries, mainly the United States, which made pupusas available elsewhere: Salvadoran immigrants brought the dish to most areas of the US, and they spread to Canada and Australia as well. In April 2005, the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly declared pupusas as the national dish of El Salvador and every second Sunday of November would be National Pupusas Day.

A fair is typically held on the day in the capital and a few big cities. In 2011, The Guardian named pupusas that year’s Best Street Food in New York. A variant of the pupusa in El Salvador is the pupusa de arroz, originally hailing from the town of Olocuilta in the east of San Salvador. Rice flour is used to make the dough and they are usually stuffed with chopped pork, cheese, beans, zucchini, and other vegetables. Pupusas are also found in neighboring Central American countries. Honduran versions use the local quesillo type of cheese for the filling.

In Costa Rica, both “Salvadoran pupusas” and “pupusas” are available, the latter being a local version. There, they are a staple of the food stalls at regional carnivals known as fiestas. In Colombia and Venezuela, they make arepas. Some high-end pupuserías in the United States use rice flour and wheat flour versions.