3-Ingredient Meringuitos (Meringue Cookies)
These light and airy 3 ingredient merenguitos have that signature crispy exterior and melt in your mouth soft interior. Known affectionately as besitos or kisses in Latin cuisine, these meringue cookies are elegant, yet super simple to make.
With the holiday season upon us, I can’t think of a more festive dessert to share than these Latin-style meringue cookies!
Merenguitos are delicate in appearance and texture. The bright white meringue gets piped into little cookies that are show stopping-ly beautiful and totally addicting.
The best part? They’re extremely easy to make, which is why their a staple holiday dessert in Puerto Rican and Cuban households.
This recipe comes together with just 3 ingredients (egg whites, sugar, and lemon juice) and produces up to 30 cookies.
While they do take a couple hours to bake (low and slow baby!), whipping them up with a stand or hand mixer takes only about 20 minutes. It’s a foolproof recipe that’s guaranteed to impress your friends and family.
Easy enough that your toddler can lend a helping hand, but beautiful enough that people will think your a pastry chef!
Kind of like these baked cream cheese quesitos, this is one of those recipes where the payoff far outweighs the effort. A delicious win-win!
3 Ingredient Grocery List
While these meringue cookies are incredibly easy to customize with food coloring and extract flavorings, the base is simple:
How to Make Merenguitos
Baking Tip: Bake at 200°F for 1 hour for chewy merenguitos or 2 hours for crunchy merenguitos.
The Sugar Trick
You may have noticed that this recipe uses a hot water bath method to incorporate the sugar instead of melting the sugar before incorporating.
This time saving technique was inspired by @el_aprendizz on Tiktok; definitely go check out his page for fantastic Latin American recipes.
This trick simplifies the recipe as there’s no need to melt sugar down on the stovetop or be extra careful with adding it slowly. The warm water bath helps the sugar to dissolve beautifully into the egg white mixture.
More Holiday Desserts & Drinks
While you can enjoy these meringues any time of the year, they’re traditionally made around the holidays alongside some other classic desserts and drinks:
Adding Color & Flavor
As mentioned above, merenguitos are a great dessert to add your own spin to. This is easy to do using food coloring and extracts.
If you plan to add flavor or color, do so at the same time that you add the lemon juice.
Here are some ideas:
- Add a drop or two of festive colors like red or green for Christmas or pastels for Easter
- Divide the meringue in half in two bowls and add one color to one bowl and another to the other, then layer in your piping bag for a fun color combination
- Add a drop or two of amaretto, almond, peppermint, or coconut extract to give the cookies a unique flavor
Buen provecho,
3-Ingredient Merenguitos (Meringue Cookies)
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 24–30 meringuitos 1x
- Category: Dessert, Cookie
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: French, Cuban
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
These light and airy 3 ingredient merenguitos have that signature crispy exterior and melt in your mouth soft interior. Known affectionately as besitos or kisses in Latin cuisine, these meringue cookies are elegant, yet super simple to make.
Ingredients
- 3 egg whites, room temperature
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp lemon juice or 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Beat the egg whites. Using a stand or hand mixer, beat the egg whites until they become white in color and stiff peaks form, this usually takes about 3 minutes
- Stack bowls and add sugar. Gently set the bowl of whipped egg whites nested in a slightly larger bowl filled a quarter way with hot water so that the bowl of egg whites sits in the hot water, making sure the water cannot overflow into the egg whites. Add sugar and continue to beat until white in color and stiff peaks form again, about 10 minutes.
- Add lemon juice or vanilla & any color or flavors. Add the lemon juice or vanilla and any desired coloring or flavoring and continue beating everything together until evenly incorporated, about 2 minutes.
- Pipe & bake. Add whipped meringue to a piping bag and pipe the merenguitos onto a parchment lined pan. Bake at 200°F for 1 hour for chewy merenguitos or 2 hours for crunchy merenguitos. Once the cooking time is up, turn off the oven and leave the cookies in the oven while it cools for 1 hour. Enjoy!
best thing ever! it worked so amazing! i didnt use the hot water bowl method but they’re still soooo goood!!! thank you so much for this recipe!!!❤❤❤❤❤
Good morning,
How long will these keep?
They should keep for up to 2 weeks when stored in an air tight container on your counter top!