Filipino recipes
7 viral Filipino dishes — clear, structured, and quick to cook.
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Chicken Adobo ala Filipina
The Philippines' national dish: chicken braised in soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, peppercorns, and bay until the meat falls off the bone and the sauce turns glossy and intense. Five pantry ingredients, almost no work.
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Adobo Ayam — ayam ungkep khas Filipina
The unofficial national dish of the Philippines: chicken braised in a glossy, tangy-savoury sauce of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay and peppercorns, then often reduced until the pieces catch and caramelise. Adobo is the genius of preserving-by-cooking — sharp, deep and dead simple, with every family swearing by its own balance. It only gets better the next day.
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Sinigang — sup asam asam jawa khas Filipina
The Philippines' beloved sour soup: pork (or shrimp, fish or beef) simmered in a broth made mouth-puckeringly tangy with tamarind, loaded with vegetables like water spinach, radish, eggplant and long beans. Sinigang is comforting, savoury and bracingly sour — the national craving on a rainy day — and the level of asim (sourness) is a matter of fierce personal pride, eaten with plenty of steamed rice and a saucer of fish sauce.
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Lechon — perut babi panggang renyah khas Filipina
The king of the Filipino fiesta table: pork roasted until the skin blisters into shattering, glassy crackling while the meat stays juicy and aromatic with lemongrass, garlic and bay. While the whole spit-roasted pig (lechon baboy) is the celebration showpiece, this home version — a rolled, stuffed pork belly (lechon belly) roasted to crisp-skinned perfection — delivers the same crackle and flavour from a regular oven. Served with a tangy liver-based lechon sauce or spiced vinegar.
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Kare-Kare — semur buntut saus kacang khas Filipina
The Philippines' grand peanut stew: oxtail (and often tripe) simmered for hours until fall-apart tender, then napped in a thick, savoury peanut sauce coloured golden with annatto, alongside eggplant, string beans, banana heart and bok choy. Kare-Kare is rich and gently sweet-nutty — and, crucially, served with a side of bagoong (salty fermented shrimp paste) that you stir in to taste, the salty-funky counterpoint that makes the dish sing. A centrepiece of Filipino fiestas and family feasts, it's pure celebration food.
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Sisig — olahan babi cincang panas khas Filipina
The undisputed king of Filipino bar food (pulutan): pork — traditionally pig's head and ears, plus liver — boiled, grilled and then finely chopped, sizzled on a screaming-hot cast-iron plate with onions and chilli, brightened with calamansi and sometimes bound with a touch of mayonnaise or a cracked egg on top. The result is a riot of textures — crisp, chewy, tender — and flavours — savoury, sour, spicy, rich. Born in Pampanga, the country's culinary capital, sisig arrives still spitting and sizzling, made to be eaten hot with cold beer and a mound of rice. It's loud, addictive and utterly Filipino.
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Lumpia Filipina (Lumpia Goreng ala Filipina)
Lumpia are the slim, shatter-crisp fried spring rolls that anchor every Filipino party table, filled here in the classic Shanghai style with garlicky ground pork, carrot, and green onion. Rolling them thin and tight — no wider than your thumb — is the secret: the raw pork filling cooks through in the same few minutes it takes the wrapper to blister deep golden, so you get juicy meat inside a wrapper that audibly crackles.
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