Pork Adobo is the delight of the Philippines – one chunk and also you’ll be hooked! Meltingly tender pork is gradual cooked till fall-apart in an intense soy-garlic sauce that reduces right 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, and so they have each purpose 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 substances could be so unimaginable. 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 approach by way of 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 doubtless the kind of Adobo most individuals outdoors the Philippines are aware of.
What pork adobo tastes like – The traditional and most typical adobo is made with the important thing substances of soy, vinegar and a contact of sugar. Like many conventional meals, Adobo is a type of dishes the place each family makes it their very own approach, to their very own tastes, and as we speak’s model is how we prefer it. We want Adobo with a extra rounded flavour the place it’s largely 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 best way it’s speculated to be: on the stronger aspect however with out being overly salty. The thought is you eat Adobo with loads of rice and serve with modest quantities of sauce relatively than drowning your rice in sauce.
Substances in Pork Adobo
Right here’s what it’s essential make Pork Adobo. I guess you’ve bought all of the sauce substances in your pantry proper now!
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Pork meat – Pork stomach is the commonest lower used for pork adobo, however I personally want 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 superb too however scale back simmering time to 1 hour (it doesn’t want gradual cooking as lengthy).
Reduce the pork shoulder into massive 6 – 7cm / 2.5″ cubes. Bigger is healthier so that they don’t turn into “fall-apart” too rapidly. Longer and slower prepare 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 hen, 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 awesome soy flavour. The darkish soy sauce darkens the color of the sauce to nearly black. Darkish soy is sort of intense so we don’t want a lot – just 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’ll too darkish and too intense, it’ll damage the dish! Extra about distinction soy sauces right here.
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Brown sugar – This offers the sweetness within the sauce. White sugar can be utilized as an alternative although brown is healthier as a result of it provides a smidge of caramel-y flavour. Honey can 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 approach because the lengthy braising softens the acidity. Be at liberty to make use of other forms of vinegar. White wine, apple cider, or plain previous white vinegar will all work. Vinegars can range so much of their depth, amongst varieties in addition to even manufacturers. So begin with the quantity per the recipe, then style in direction of the tip of cooking. If you happen to want a bit extra sharpness, you may add a teaspoon at a time to style.
Some adobos are intentionally fairly tangy, however we want a gentler acidity. We use simply sufficient to carry brightness with out being overly bitter. We sampled some from eating places that had been so bitter, we discovered it was an excessive amount of and troublesome to eat!
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Black peppercorns – Entire peppercorns are conventional however not important in my opinion. If you happen to don’t like biting into complete peppercorns (I personally love the spicy pops!), you may both add a great pinch of floor black pepper, or go away it out.
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Pineapple – Pricey 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 albeit, after making an attempt it I fell in love with it as an addition. It offers a scrumptious candy and recent 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, after all!!)
If you will get your arms on freshly lower pineapple after all that’s finest. In any other case, canned pineapple does a superbly acceptable job and is what I exploit. I like larger chunks lower from rings, however smaller pre-cut items can even do wonderful if that’s all you’ve gotten.
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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 non-obligatory for those who don’t have any. Recent is healthier for those who can (it’s a wonderful low-maintenance plant, if you wish to develop your personal!), else dried is ok.
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Water – Not proven. Sorry. As a result of I do know you’ve bought some! (I’m speaking common faucet water right here, not a elaborate hard-to-find Filipino water!)
The right way to make pork adobo
It’s an extremely low-effort recipe. Extra nationwide dishes have to be this hands-off! 😁
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Sear – Utilizing a big heavy based mostly 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 tip.
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Braising liquid – Add the water, soy sauces, vinegar, sugar, bay leaves and peppercorns. Return the pork and any meat juices accrued 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 fast small bubbles). Extra mild warmth = extra mild cooking = extra succulent meat.
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Gradual prepare 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, maintain simmering till it’s!
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Proof of disintegrate pork!
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Take away the pork with a slotted spoon (it’s okay if the onion stays).
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Cut back sauce – Then enhance the warmth and boil the sauce to cut back right down to about 1 1/2 cups (375 ml), about 8 minutes. The precise time this takes will range, it will depend on how a lot liquid you begin with, energy of range and so forth.
Adobo sauce thickness and flavour – It must be like a skinny syrup, it gained’t thicken, with an intense flavour – that is the best way it’s speculated to be. The thought is you eat adobo with loads of rice and serve with modest quantities of sauce relatively than drowning your rice in sauce.
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Serve – Add the pork and pineapple into the lowered sauce and stir for a couple of minutes simply to warmth by way of. Then over jasmine rice, garnished with inexperienced onions!
How and what to serve with Pork Adobo
With Pork Adobo, the thought is: a number of steaming rice in your plate, a modest quantity of that intense flavoured sauce, and items of pork that you just break so it “falls aside” earlier than scooping up with a spoon for max flavour in each chunk. 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 comparable flavour.
Add one thing recent 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 Facet Salad or a crunchy Asian Slaw (the freshness of the mint can be beautiful with Pork Adobo!).
Get pleasure from! – Nagi x
FAQ – Pork Adobo
Sure – this can be a conventional pork adobo. It makes use of the traditional core substances you’ll discover in the commonest 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 choose to make use of pork shoulder which, although used within the Philippines, isn’t as frequent as pork stomach. And our model additionally consists of 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 right for any slow-cooking lower of meat and is simple 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 one of the best for the sauce flavour, although beef would even be beautiful and really, I believe it will be good with lamb too – the sturdy meat flavour will maintain as much as the extreme flavoured sauce fairly effectively!
If you happen to’re considering hen, use my Rooster Adobo recipe – it cooks a lot sooner, in a pan as an alternative of a pot.
Not beneficial 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 in the course of the gradual cooking stage on the floor and edges of the liquid which then intensifies when the sauce is lowered. 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 every little thing IT for RecipeTin Eats and RecipeTin Meals, he’s equally obsessive about meals. He’s the sort of one who will attempt his hand at Thomas Keller’s butter-poached lobster, tediously choose 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 elaborate restaurant yearly.
His favorite sport is looking down Sydney’s finest 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.😅
With regards to conventional Asian recipes, Goh is my go-to for fact-checking, tasting, or growing recipes solely from scratch – as with this Pork Adobo. Realizing I’d been eager to share “our excellent Adobo” for years, he ate his approach by way of numerous variations when he not too long ago visited the Philippines, then extra right here in Sydney (some so unappealing they had been nearly academic – 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 every little thing 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, dashing 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 right Pork Adobo I’d at all times dreamed of sharing!
A lot of the recipe was created based mostly our common information we’ve garnered through the years 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 substances in Adobo!), it’s nearly balancing the flavours to attain the right steadiness.
Each time we share notably 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 largely referenced are:
As famous above, we additionally bought samples from Sydney eating places however I don’t wish to title them as a result of neither had 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 learn how to make it
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Pork Adobo
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook dinner: 2 hours
Foremost
Filipino
Servings4 – 5 individuals
Faucet or hover to scale
Substances
Non-compulsory pineapple (Observe 4):
Forestall display from sleeping
Directions
ABBREVIATED:
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Brown pork, take away, sauté onion and garlic, add every little thing else. Return pork, carry to boil, gradual prepare 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 based mostly 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 – Cut back warmth to medium. Add the onion, prepare dinner for two minutes. Add garlic and prepare dinner for an additional 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 accrued within the bowl.
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Gradual prepare 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 (maintain 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 prepare 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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Cut back sauce – Take away pork with a slotted spoon (onion and so forth would not matter when it is in or out). Enhance warmth to excessive and boil to cut back the liquid right down to 1 1/2 cups – will probably be a really skinny syrup (it isn’t speculated to be thick), about 7 to 10 minutes.
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Coat pork – Cut 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 way of 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 hen, 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’ll damage the dish!
3. The peppercorns are a bit spicy whenever you chunk into them, although the spiciness dials down fairly a bit in the course of the gradual cooking time. Some persons are bothered by them, I really like them! You may omit if you would like, or sub with 1/4 tsp floor black pepper added in direction of the tip.
4. Pineapple isn’t strictly conventional – it’s presumably 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 however it’s solely non-obligatory.
5. Simmering energy – The bubbles must be small and mild, not fast and enormous. The extra mild the simmer, the slower the pork cooks, the extra tender and juicy it’s!
6. Gradual cooker not beneficial for this recipe sadly, it’ll lack flavour as you gained’t get any floor caramelisation throughout gradual cooking stage.
Leftovers will maintain 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 prefer 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 e book written by Adam Simpson referred to as Row, Row, Row your Board (With Monsters). Pre-orders had been introduced final Friday, the e book lands in shops (or in your doorstep!) on 11 November 2025, and the creator is donating all his royalties to a meals charity. 🥰 You perceive now why it was a simple YES! when the creator requested if I’d prefer to be concerned!
