Pork Adobo is the satisfaction of the Philippines – one chew and also you’ll be hooked! Meltingly tender pork is gradual cooked till fall-apart in an intense soy-garlic sauce that reduces all the way down to a glaze, then served over steaming rice. That is meals so good but so easy to make, you’ll be shaking your head in disbelief.
The Filipino are genius!
Adobo is the nationwide dish of the Philippines, they usually have each cause to be happy with it! It’s a dish comprised of pork chunks braised in a garlic-soy flavoured liquid that reduces down into an intense flavoured glaze-like sauce. The pork is fork-tender, stained a wealthy mahogany color, and when it’s served over a pile of scorching steamed rice, you’ll perceive why this can be a nationwide treasure.
At its coronary heart, it’s a easy, homely dish, and therein lies the genius – that one thing really easy with so few elements will be so unbelievable. It’s a one-pot recipe that’s hands-off, and the sauce simply requires pantry staples – soy, garlic, onion, vinegar, sugar, pepper and bay leaves.
Oh, and pork! 😅
Recipe credit score goes to my brother Goh – RecipeTin’s tech wizard and ace of world meals recipe improvement! He’s sacrificed his waistline consuming his method by numerous Adobos within the Philippines and Sydney, in pursuit of making our excellent Pork Adobo I’ve been chasing for years.
inform me about filipino adobo!
Adobo is the nationwide dish of the Philippines, and the nation’s best-known meals export. There are literally many dishes referred to as “adobo” within the Philippines – some have coconut milk, some are soupy whereas others are dry-style and glazed, like my Rooster Adobo, an extended standing reader favorite and possibly the kind of Adobo most individuals exterior the Philippines are accustomed to.
What pork adobo tastes like – The basic and commonest adobo is made with the important thing elements of soy, vinegar and a contact of sugar. Like many conventional meals, Adobo is a kind of dishes the place each family makes it their very own method, to their very own tastes, and at the moment’s model is how we prefer it. We favor Adobo with a extra rounded flavour the place it’s principally savoury with simply sufficient vinegar for brightness with out being overly bitter (some restaurant are so bitter!) and never too candy (once more, some eating places are tooth-achingly candy!).
The Adobo sauce has an intense flavour which is the way in which it’s presupposed to be: on the stronger aspect however with out being overly salty. The concept is you eat Adobo with loads of rice and serve with modest quantities of sauce quite than drowning your rice in sauce.
Components in Pork Adobo
Right here’s what you should make Pork Adobo. I guess you’ve obtained all of the sauce elements in your pantry proper now!
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Pork meat – Pork stomach is the most typical reduce used for pork adobo, however I personally favor pork shoulder for a similar fall-apart-juicy meat however much less fatty. Shank/knuckle or forequarter chop meat additionally works very well. Pork neck/scotch is great too however scale back simmering time to 1 hour (it doesn’t want gradual cooking as lengthy).
Minimize the pork shoulder into massive 6 – 7cm / 2.5″ cubes. Bigger is healthier so that they don’t develop into “fall-apart” too shortly. Longer and slower cook dinner = extra tender, juicier meat and higher flavour within the sauce.
Different proteins – Sure, this recipe can be utilized for different gradual cooking proteins. See FAQ! For rooster, use my Rooster Adobo recipe.
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Soy sauces – The gentle soy sauce is the first soy used right here which provides salt and umami with out an amazing soy flavour. The darkish soy sauce darkens the color of the sauce to virtually black. Darkish soy is sort of intense so we don’t want a lot – only one 1/2 teaspoons.
You may substitute the darkish soy with extra gentle soy sauce, however don’t substitute the sunshine soy with darkish soy sauce as a result of it is going to too darkish and too intense, it is going to spoil the dish! Extra about distinction soy sauces right here.
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Brown sugar – This supplies the sweetness within the sauce. White sugar can be utilized as a substitute although brown is healthier as a result of it provides a smidge of caramel-y flavour. Honey may also be substituted however scale back amount to 2 1/2 tablespoons.
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Rice vinegar – The addition of vinegar is what makes adobo distinctive and distinctly Filipino. It provides spine and sharpens the sauce, however in a rounded method because the lengthy braising softens the acidity. Be happy to make use of different kinds of vinegar. White wine, apple cider, or plain outdated white vinegar will all work. Vinegars can range so much of their depth, amongst sorts in addition to even manufacturers. So begin with the quantity per the recipe, then style in direction of the top of cooking. In case you favor a little bit extra sharpness, you possibly can add a teaspoon at a time to style.
Some adobos are intentionally fairly tangy, however we favor a gentler acidity. We use simply sufficient to carry brightness with out being overly bitter. We sampled some from eating places that have been so bitter, we discovered it was an excessive amount of and tough to eat!
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Black peppercorns – Entire peppercorns are conventional however not important in my opinion. In case you don’t like biting into complete peppercorns (I personally love the spicy pops!), you possibly can both add a very good pinch of floor black pepper, or go away it out.
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Pineapple – Expensive Filipinos, I do know, I do know. That is NOT a quite common ingredient in conventional pork adobo. Nevertheless I noticed it included in a number of fashionable variations and admittedly, after making an attempt it I fell in love with it as an addition. It supplies a scrumptious candy and contemporary counterpoint to the richly-flavoured pork and sauce, to not point out some welcome color to what’s in any other case a uniformly brown dish (no shade at brown dishes, in fact!!)
If you will get your arms on freshly reduce pineapple in fact that’s greatest. In any other case, canned pineapple does a superbly acceptable job and is what I exploit. I like greater chunks reduce from rings, however smaller pre-cut items may also do fantastic if that’s all you’ve got.
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Bay leaves – You wouldn’t consider bay leaves as having a spot in South East Asian cooking! It is a legacy of the Spanish colonial affect on Filipino delicacies. They’re elective in the event you don’t have any. Contemporary is healthier in the event you can (it’s a wonderful low-maintenance plant, if you wish to develop your personal!), else dried is okay.
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Water – Not proven. Sorry. As a result of I do know you’ve obtained some! (I’m speaking common faucet water right here, not a flowery hard-to-find Filipino water!)
Easy methods to make pork adobo
It’s an extremely low-effort recipe. Extra nationwide dishes should be this hands-off! 😁
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Sear – Utilizing a big heavy primarily based pot, sear the pork in two batches over excessive warmth till properly golden throughout. Take about 4 minutes to do every batch, turning as wanted to sear both sides and get some good golden color on it. Take away to a bowl and reserve residual fats within the pot.
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Sauté the onion till it softens, including the garlic in direction of the top.
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Braising liquid – Add the water, soy sauces, vinegar, sugar, bay leaves and peppercorns. Return the pork and any meat juices amassed within the bowl to the liquid. Deliver it to a boil, then decrease the warmth so the liquid is simmering gently (ie. a number of slow-ish bubbles, not speedy small bubbles). Extra mild warmth = extra mild cooking = extra succulent meat.
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Gradual cook dinner 1 1/2 hours – Partially cowl the pot with a lid – by this, I imply place the lid on off centre to go away a crack about 2cm / 1″ – and simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours or till the pork is tender and may simply be pried aside. If it’s nonetheless not tender, hold simmering till it’s!
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Proof of collapse pork!
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Take away the pork with a slotted spoon (it’s okay if the onion stays).
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Scale back sauce – Then improve the warmth and boil the sauce to scale back all the way down to about 1 1/2 cups (375 ml), about 8 minutes. The precise time this takes will range, it depends upon how a lot liquid you begin with, energy of range and many others.
Adobo sauce thickness and flavour – It ought to be like a skinny syrup, it gained’t thicken, with an intense flavour – that is the way in which it’s presupposed to be. The concept is you eat adobo with loads of rice and serve with modest quantities of sauce quite than drowning your rice in sauce.
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Serve – Add the pork and pineapple into the decreased sauce and stir for a couple of minutes simply to warmth by. Then over jasmine rice, garnished with inexperienced onions!
How and what to serve with Pork Adobo
With Pork Adobo, the concept is: plenty of steaming rice in your plate, a modest quantity of that intense flavoured sauce, and items of pork that you simply break so it “falls aside” earlier than scooping up with a spoon for optimum flavour in each chew. Within the Philippines, fork-and-spoon consuming is the norm – excellent for Adobo consuming!
I’ve used plain jasmine rice right here, however any rice works, and garlic fried rice (sinangag) is a well-liked improve – – right here’s my garlic rice recipe, not strictly Filipino however related flavour.
Add one thing contemporary to chop the richness – smashed cucumbers is at all times a winner, plain undressed tomato and cucumber wedges (very South East Asian), my trusty Asian Aspect Salad or a crunchy Asian Slaw (the freshness of the mint could be beautiful with Pork Adobo!).
Take pleasure in! – Nagi x
FAQ – Pork Adobo
Sure – this can be a conventional pork adobo. It makes use of the basic core elements you’ll discover in the most typical Filipino variations: pork, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, onion, sugar, black pepper, and bay leaves. The tactic can also be genuine – browning the meat, then slow-braising it till tender whereas the sauce reduces to a shiny glaze.
Nevertheless, we do decide to make use of pork shoulder which, although used within the Philippines, will not be as frequent as pork stomach. And our model additionally contains pineapple which isn’t strictly old-school conventional although you do see it in some fashionable variations (we tried it with and with out and there’s no query – we adore it with pineapple!).
Sure. The tactic on this recipe is good for any slow-cooking reduce of meat and is straightforward to adapt – simply braise per the recipe till the meat is fork tender, take it out, then scale back the sauce. I believe pork is the most effective for the sauce flavour, although beef would even be beautiful and really, I believe it might be good with lamb too – the sturdy meat flavour will maintain as much as the extreme flavoured sauce fairly nicely!
In case you’re pondering rooster, use my Rooster Adobo recipe – it cooks a lot sooner, in a pan as a substitute of a pot.
Not really helpful for this one sadly. It’s such a easy sauce, and watery one at that, so getting the flavour depends on the caramelisation you get through the gradual cooking stage on the floor and edges of the liquid which then intensifies when the sauce is decreased. I do know that in a gradual cooker this may actually lack depth of flavour.
This recipe was created by my brother Goh – RecipeTin’s resident tech wizard and, unofficially, our king of world meals recipe improvement. Whereas he’s the brains behind all the things IT for RecipeTin Eats and RecipeTin Meals, he’s equally obsessive about meals. He’s the type of one that will attempt his hand at Thomas Keller’s butter-poached lobster, tediously decide crab meat for from-scratch ravioli, can learn and perceive menus in 12 totally different languages, and famously spent most of his twenties saving to dine at a flowery restaurant annually.
His favorite sport is searching down Sydney’s greatest hole-in-the-wall joints (his dwell meals map is a factor of legend) and he’s additionally the man who unapologetically balances all that appreciation of lovely meals with an equally profound appreciation of the Golden Arches and Colonel Sanders.😅
In terms of conventional Asian recipes, Goh is my go-to for fact-checking, tasting, or creating recipes completely from scratch – as with this Pork Adobo. Realizing I’d been eager to share “our excellent Adobo” for years, he ate his method by numerous variations when he lately visited the Philippines, then extra right here in Sydney (some so unappealing they have been virtually instructional – sauces too thick, too bitter, too candy, meat too dry). These less-than-perfect meals formed precisely what we didn’t need, and it didn’t take lengthy for Goh and JB to nail a model that was all the things we did need – savoury, balanced, fall-apart tender pork, and a sauce simply intense sufficient.
The true enjoyable was within the improvement course of – heated WhatsApp debates, shuttling samples between homes, speeding over a freshly made batch as a result of “you must attempt it whereas it’s scorching!”, and prolonged arguments about sauce discount (“Can a sauce be too intense?” – sure there’s such a factor, we determined). It’s that blend of Goh’s technical precision, culinary curiosity, and love of flavour that made this Pork Adobo working with JB and I that led to this recipe – the proper Pork Adobo I’d at all times dreamed of sharing!
A lot of the recipe was created primarily based our common information we’ve garnered over time about Adobo and from the Rooster Adobo I shared some years in the past. As a point out within the above FAQ, it’s not a tough recipe (there’s not that many elements in Adobo!), it’s nearly balancing the flavours to realize the proper steadiness.
Every time we share significantly conventional recipes, we do extensively scour the web to see “what others are doing”, extra out of common curiosity and observe frequent themes. The recipes we principally referenced are:
As famous above, we additionally obtained samples from Sydney eating places however I don’t need to identify them as a result of neither have been superb, I’m unhappy to report.
Goh additionally tried adobos from varied areas in Manila, together with avenue markets and well-liked conventional Filipino eating places.
Watch how one can make it
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Pork Adobo
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook dinner: 2 hours
Predominant
Filipino
Servings4 – 5 folks
Faucet or hover to scale
Components
Non-compulsory pineapple (Observe 4):
Forestall display screen from sleeping
Directions
ABBREVIATED:
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Brown pork, take away, sauté onion and garlic, add all the things else. Return pork, carry to boil, gradual cook dinner 1 1/2 hours till fall-apart. Caramelise pineapple items. Take away pork, scale back sauce to 1 1/2 cups (375 ml), stir in pork and caramelised pineapple till warmed. Serve over rice!
FULL RECIPE:
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Sear pork – Warmth the oil in a big heavy primarily based pot over excessive warmth. Sear half the pork till golden throughout – about 4 minutes – then take away right into a bowl. Repeat with remaining pork, add to the bowl.
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Sauté – Scale back warmth to medium. Add the onion, cook dinner for two minutes. Add garlic and cook dinner for one more minute till the onion is softened.
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Braising liquid – Add water, soy sauces, vinegar, sugar, peppercorns and bay leaves. Stir. Add the pork again in, together with any juices amassed within the bowl.
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Gradual cook dinner 1 1/2 hours – Deliver to a boil, then partially cowl with a lid (go away a 2cm / 1″ crack) and scale back the warmth to low/medium low so the liquid is simmering very, very gently. (Observe 4) Simmer for 1 1/2 hours or till the pork is fall-apart tender (hold simmering if not tender).
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Caramelise pineapple – Whereas pork is simmering, warmth the oil in a non-stick pan over medium warmth. Unfold the pineapple out in a single layer and cook dinner both sides till golden, about 4 minutes both sides (I exploit spatula + tongs to show). Take away onto plate till required.
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Scale back sauce – Take away pork with a slotted spoon (onion and many others would not matter when it is in or out). Improve warmth to excessive and boil to scale back the liquid all the way down to 1 1/2 cups – it is going to be a really skinny syrup (it is not presupposed to be thick), about 7 to 10 minutes.
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Coat pork – Scale back warmth to low. Add the pork and pineapple items, plus any juices within the bowl. Stir gently to coat within the sauce and heat the pork by once more.
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Serve over jasmine rice, garnished with inexperienced onion if utilizing.
Recipe Notes:
Different proteins – Different stewing cuts will work nice, see FAQ for instructions. For rooster, see Rooster Adobo.
2. Soy sauces – You may substitute the darkish soy with extra gentle soy sauce, however don’t sub the sunshine soy with darkish soy sauce as a result of it’s so intense, it is going to spoil the dish!
3. The peppercorns are a bit spicy while you chew into them, although the spiciness dials down fairly a bit through the gradual cooking time. Some individuals are bothered by them, I like them! You may omit if you need, or sub with 1/4 tsp floor black pepper added in direction of the top.
4. Pineapple isn’t strictly conventional – it’s probably a contemporary variation – although it’s included in Filipino recipes. We LOVE the visible curiosity, and the refreshing and candy aspect it provides to steadiness the salty/bitter flavours and fatty meat, so we included it nevertheless it’s completely elective.
5. Simmering energy – The bubbles ought to be small and delicate, not speedy and enormous. The extra mild the simmer, the slower the pork cooks, the extra tender and juicy it’s!
6. Gradual cooker not really helpful for this recipe sadly, it is going to lack flavour as you gained’t get any floor caramelisation throughout gradual cooking stage.
Leftovers will hold for 4 days within the fridge, or 3 months within the freezer.
Vitamin per serving assuming 5 servings, excluding rice. Assumes all sauce is consumed.
Vitamin Info:
Energy: 357cal (18%)Carbohydrates: 25g (8%)Protein: 28g (56%)Fats: 16g (25%)Saturated Fats: 4g (25%)Polyunsaturated Fats: 3gMonounsaturated Fats: 9gTrans Fats: 0.03gLdl cholesterol: 82mg (27%)Sodium: 1502mg (65%)Potassium: 642mg (18%)Fiber: 2g (8%)Sugar: 20g (22%)Vitamin A: 80IU (2%)Vitamin C: 11mg (13%)Calcium: 68mg (7%)Iron: 3mg (17%)
Lifetime of Dozer
Ah. So that is what it feels wish to be dethroned by your personal darn canine.😅 Row, Row, Row (with Monsters) that includes Dozer takes over my very own cookbooks within the charts – go Dozer, go!
For individuals who missed the thrilling announcement on Friday, Dozer is starring in a kids’s guide written by Adam Simpson referred to as Row, Row, Row your Board (With Monsters). Pre-orders have been introduced final Friday, the guide lands in shops (or in your doorstep!) on 11 November 2025, and the writer is donating all his royalties to a meals charity. 🥰 You perceive now why it was a straightforward YES! when the writer requested if I’d wish to be concerned!
