World Paella Day 2020

For a lot of people who live in the Valencia region, every day is paella day. Lucky them! But the rest of us have a good excuse to indulge in all things paella related on Sunday, September 20^th, as it is World Paella Day, which celebrates probably the best-known dish in Spanish cuisine. Paella may have humble origins, like all great dishes, but it has fans all over the globe with around eight million people searching every year for information on how to make it and where to eat it.

Cook your own authentic paella

If you fancy having a go yourself, help is at hand from some top chefs. Click to see the recipes for Valencian paella, mountain rice and arroz a banda. It might not turn out quite as you’d like at the first attempt but will still be delicious. And you can have a lot of fun practising. Get in the swing by watching this video about Valencia, which also features top chefs Miriam and Manolo de Andrés-Salvador of the renowned La Sucursal restaurant, who are making paella by the Albufera lake south of Valencia, where the all-important rice is grown.

World Paella Day Competition 2020

The Spanish Tourist Office is hosting a competition where you can win an authentic paella cooking set. You simply need to reply to one of the competition posts on social media with a photo of your favourite paella, stating the place where it was taken and using the hashtag #WorldPaellaDay2020. The competition posts can be found on Twitter at @Spain_inUK and on Facebook at Spain.Info.GB. Participants must also be following the respective social media channels as winners will be notified directly on those platforms. The terms and conditions are available here.

And then there’s the World Paella Day Cup, an international competition that will see eight different chefs from around the world go head-to-head to reach the grand final and be crowned the champion.

Hungry yet? For more paella information and inspiration, I’d also recommend watching this National Geographic Travel Geeks – Valencia: Culture and Cuisine webinar.