Chicken Adobo is the most popular and famous dish in the Philippines. Chicken is braised, low and slow, in tangy, vinegary garlic sauce until it is meltingly tender and falling off the bone. It's incredible! And the good news is, it's easy to make Filipino chicken adobo at home with common ingredients.
Have you ever eaten Filipino food? I hadn't until I started testing recipes for this post.
I Googled Filipino restaurants in Massachusetts and there's only one. After more research I discovered that there aren't many Filipino restaurants in America. Yet according to the Census Bureau, Filipinos are the second-largest Asian group in the USA, totaling 3.4 million people (based on 2010 estimates).
The Philippines is an archipelago of over 7,000 islands in southeast Asia, not far from Thailand. We all know and love Thai food.
I can't say why Filipino food isn't more prominent in the culinary scene here. But If this chicken adobo is any indication, Filipino food rocks, and we should all be enjoying it!
WHAT IS ADOBO?
'Adobo' can refer to many different things. Here's the scoop
- Adobo is the name of a popular Caribbean spice mix that usually contains salt, garlic powder, oregano and pepper.
- Adobo is the name of a Mexican paste or sauce that contains chipotle chilies, which are dried smoked jalapeño peppers. it's often called 'chipotle in adobo.'
- Adobe is a popular Filipino dish named after a cooking technique that entails stewing meat, chicken or vegetables in garlicky, peppery vinegar sauce.
- Want to know more about what is adobo? Here's a good article on the subject from Food and Wine: What is Adobo?
HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN ADOBO:
Filipino Chicken adobo is a simple dish with only 6 main ingredients. Chicken thighs are marinated in vinegar and garlic for a half hour, browned, and then stewed for an hour with onions, garlic, vinegar, soy sauce and fish sauce.
The key to making this wonderful, richly flavored fork-tender chicken is in the braising technique. Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs are perfect for braising. When you brown chicken thighs over high heat, you create a delicious layer of flavor in the skin and you seal in the juices. Plus you get lots of tasty browned bits on the bottom of the pan, which will flavor the sauce.
- Marinate The Chicken: Start by marinating the chicken thighs for 30 minutes, with white vinegar and garlic.
- Brown The Chicken: Next, sauté the chicken pieces in your dutch over or heavy pot, over high heat.
- Sauté The Aromatic Vegetables: Transfer browned chicken to a plate, add onions and garlic to the pot and sauté until tender.
- Braise The Chicken: Add the chicken back to the pot along with reserved marinade, soy sauce, fish sauce, black pepper, bay leaves and water. Simmer, covered, for about an hour, until the chicken is falling off the bone and the sauce is rich and dark.
HOW TO PEEL GARLIC THE EASY WAY
There's a whole head of garlic in this chicken adobo recipe. Peeling garlic can be tedious but there's a technique I'm going to tell you about that makes it easy to get the papery skins off.
You'll be amazed at how easy is it to peel a whole head of garlic when you use this technique. It changed my life when I learned this!
- Place a clove of garlic on your work surface.
- Lay the flat side of the blade of a large heavy knife over the garlic clove.
- Use the heel of your hand, CAREFULLY, to pound the knife once or twice until the clove is flattened a bit.
- That will loosen the papery skin so you can easily pull it off.
- Another benefit of this technique is that the garlic cloves are left bruised and tender, so they're easier to chop.
I just have to mention that during every step of making this chicken adobo recipe, the smell is intoxicating - even my 16-year-old was lured downstairs to ask 'what's cooking?'
WHAT IS THE ADOBO COOKING METHOD?
The adobo cooking method was originally invented as a way to preserve meat before there was refrigeration. Harmful bacteria can not survive in an acid environment so vinegar was, and still is, a perfect natural preservative for foods.
Adobo has stood the test of time. Despite the invention of refrigeration, adobe remains extremely popular in Filipino cuisine.
Many consider chicken adobo to be the national dish of the Philippines.
I knew I would love chicken adobo before I even tried it. I have a thing for super tender chicken braised in vinegar sauce.
WHAT TO SERVE WITH CHICKEN ADOBO
Here are some side dishes that go beautifully with Filipino chicken adobo:
- A side of rice, quinoa or mashed potatoes is a must! You'll want something starchy to soak up the delicious sauce
- A simple citrusy green salad is a perfect side dish with chicken adobo.
- This shredded raw carrot salad is also a great choice.
- To garnish, I recommend chopped cilantro or chopped scallions or both.
Here's the recipe for Filipino Chicken Adobo. If you try this recipe, I hope you'll come back to leave a star rating and comment. I'd love to know what you think!
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Filipino Chicken Adobo Recipe
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 mins
- Yield: 5-6 1x
Description
Tender braised chicken thighs in a tangy flavorful vinegar sauce. Serve it with white rice to soak up all the delicious sauce.
Ingredients
- 4 pounds chicken thighs (with bones and skin)
- 1 ½ cups distilled white vinegar
- 1 head of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped (about 6 tablespoons chopped), divided
- 2 tablespoons light olive oil or vegetable oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced (1 ½ cups sliced onion)
- ½ cup soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Thai fish sauce or Filipino fish sauce
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 dried bay leaves
Instructions
- Marinate The Chicken Thighs: Put chicken in a non-reactive bowl or casserole. Combine the vinegar and 1 tablespoon of the chopped garlic and pour it over the chicken, and toss, to coat. Marinate the chicken for 30 minutes, in the fridge or in a cool place. Remove chicken from the marinade, allowing excess liquid to drip back into the bowl, and transfer the chicken to a clean plate. Reserve the marinade.
- Brown Chicken: pat chicken dry with paper towels. Heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium heat in a large dutch oven or heavy pot with a lid. Brown chicken in batches (4-5 pieces at a time), starting skin side down for 3-4 minutes. Then turn it and brown it for just a minute on the other side. Transfer chicken to a plate and set aside. Pour out all but 2 tablespoons fat from the pot. (hint: It's easier if you pour it all out, into a small bowl or coffee cup, and then add back the 2 tablespoons).
- Add Aromatics: Turn the heat down to medium-low, add onions and remaining garlic to the pot and sauté, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, until the onions are softened.
- Braise: Return the chicken to the pot along with any accumulated juices, reserved vinegar-garlic marinade, soy sauce, fish sauce, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, 2 bay leaves and ¼ cup of water. Stir to combine, bring to a boil, lower to a simmer, cover and cook at a low steady simmer for 1 hour or until the chicken is tender and the sauce is a rich brown color. Serve over rice.
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour 15 mins
- Category: Main Course
- Method: braising
- Cuisine: Filipino
Keywords: Filipino Chicken Adobo, braised chicken adobo, filipino chicken stew, authentic chicken adobo
[This Chicken Adobo Recipe first appeared on Panning The Globe in March 2014. It has been updated with clearer instructions, tweaks to the written post and added nutritional information]
Maddy
This sounds incredible! Would love to try making it one day!
★★★★★
Lisa
I hope you do! 🙂
priyanka
Wow this looks delicious! Can’t wait to try it.
Thanks for the tip!
Have a great day.
Priyanka
Jen G.
Wow, made this again and I'm so excited to eat. Love love the vinegar and onions in this dish.
Just had some nibbles...it's almost ready!!
Lisa
Yum, you're reminding me that I want to make this soon! Thanks for your note.
Jethro Acosta
Hello saw a show that mentioned adobe, happy stumbled across you recipe....delicious my entire family loved it!!!
★★★★★
marinette
So easy and so delicious! Thanks for sharing!
★★★★★
Ronny K
Mine is in the oven, and the house smells great. I had to substitute Vietnamese fish sauce(Nuoc Mam Nhi) but at least it's the good stuff. Thanks for another great suggestion!
★★★★★
Tyler
Just made this recipe and loved it. I live in San Francisco and have eaten a lot of adobo. I work with Filipinos and get their homemade adobo as well. Of all the recipes I've tried so far for adobo, this one Is definitely my favorite. I have used recipes where the ratio of soy sauce to vinegar was 1:1 and it is way too salty. I liked this recipes emphasis n vinegar. But make no mistake, the fat from the thighs really enhanced the flavor of the soy sauce ( you didn't need a lot). I really liked frying the thighs first, made the skin not be a funky mess after it stewed in the vinegar. Like another reviewer I left my pepper whole. I may add a little more soy sauce next time, but not much. Served it with garlic fried rice'! This will be my go to recipe for adobo. Thank you!
Emily
I loved the flavor of this recipe. However, I could not get the sauce to reduce or stick to the chicken. What should I do?
Valarie Madueno
I was trying to look for a recipe that's similar to my mother in-laws so I could give it to a friend, and I'm too lazy to cook it for her or write it down... so i searched some haha. The thing with food in general is that nobody makes it quite as good as mom does, and adobo definitely being one of those dishes! I could copy her movements exactly but I will never make it like she does, even in the PI, nobody there either! So I was happy to see how close this was to hers. There's not a lot of variation but there sure is in the measurements- she doesn't use onions though. This saves me from having to write down the list and instructions haha thanks! Note- the PI brand soy sauce (I don't remember the name but if you're Filipino or from the PI like my husband and his family you'll know what it is, as one of them) is the absolute best one to use! (It wont let me give it 3 stars, only 3, but I give it 5 for the record!)
★★★
Gemma Seymour
As a US-born Fil-Am, I've been making Adobong Manok all my life, or at least as far back as my parents would let me at the stove—in fact, I'm eating some right now—and I have to say, like many other beloved dishes, there are as many versions as there are cooks, and in the Philippines, which has 7,000+ islands and a population of almost 100 million people, the variations are practically endless.
In my family, we would never use a 1:3 ratio of soy sauce to vinegar, nor would we ever use white vinegar, unless we happened for some odd reason to run out of a more flavorful type. I prefer Datu Puti Premium Cane Vinegar or Coco Vinegar from the Philippines. but even apple cider vinegar would be better than white vinegar, and I would use a 1:1 ratio of Kikkoman koikuchi (regular) shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) to vinegar. For 4 lbs of chicken parts, 1 cup each is a good start. The fish sauce—patis, in Filipino—is something that I occasionally use, but mostly do not.
But sometimes, I will make my adobo with patis and vinegar—no soy sauce—and other times I will make Adobong Puti (white adobo), and use simply sea salt and vinegar. I don't use onion in chicken adobo, but I do like the hint of extra sweetness in pork adobo, which also can benefit from a little siling (hot chile). Other times, I will throw in a can of coconut milk and make Adobong Manok sa Gata.
Don't be afraid to use too much garlic! The more garlic, the better. It will mellow as it cooks, just like the famous French dish, Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic, and any extra garlic in the pot after the chicken is gone will be perfect for making adobo fried rice the next morning for breakfast.
There's really no need for the extra oil in my house, since I never bother browning the chicken before braising. Sometimes, I will briefly broil it after braising. The pepper is traditionally put in whole, but I like it cracked, rather than ground, because I dislike biting into whole peppercorns. Also, feel free to toss in more bay leaves. Even for a small pot of adobo, I often use 4 leaves.
Adobo in my family is always served soupy—Manila-style—without reducing the sauce so there's plenty to pour over your rice, but if you like your sauce reduced, definitely consider using less soy sauce, or it will be too salty. I like to serve my adobo with grilled pineapple, grilled banana, or fresh mango. Philippine Adobo never fails to please, and it is usually a Westerner's first introduction to Filipino cuisine, since it is effectively the national dish. Every person for whom I have ever made has fallen in love with it at first bite.
Thank you for helping bring the food of my ancestors to a wider audience. With so many Filipinos in the US, you would think Filipino restaurants would be in every town. I live in a rural town of 12000 people, now, and we have at least three Thai restaurants, but even our largest cities in the US often do not boast a single Filipino restaurant.
★★★
Lisa
Gemma, Wow - such great information and insight here about chicken adobo! I love the idea of adobo fried rice for breakfast! The grilled fruits sound like the perfect accompaniment to the tangy, garlicky chicken - I'm definitely going to grill up some pineapple and mango next time I make this. Thank you so much for all of this! Please let me know if you have any other favorite Filipino dishes. ~ Lisa
Awita
I've never had adobo before, and my roommate was raving about how great it is. So i decided to give your recipe a shot. I halved the recipe using only 2 pounds of chicken and followed the cooking time exactly. I'm not sure why but the chicken meat ended up tough. Should I have cooked the chicken longer?
Other than that the sauce is just divine! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
★★★★
Lisa
I'm sorry your chicken turned out tough - that's unusual for thighs. My only thought is that you might have had the heat turned up too high? That would make it tough. Simmering it gently should make it nice and tender.
Chris
It will get tough if you stir the chicken too quickly without allowing the vinegar to boil first.
Christy
How I miss my Grandma. She cooks Filipino Food and Adobo is my favorite! We live in Boston and JnJ Turo-Turo is the nearest Filipino Restaurant and sometimes I went there to eat Adobo. But now that I discover this recipe I can make my own Adobo and eat anytime I want. Thanks!
Ruben
Thanks for your take on a classic Filipino dish! Your version is mmm mmm Yummy. I find that using white vinegar is too assertive for me. For pork adobo, apple cider vinegar is my acid of choice (with a bit of the white for some bite). For chicken adobo, I like to use a more mellow acid like white wine vinegar or cane vinegar. I've had friends use all lemon or all lime juice and those, too, were tasty twists to the dish.
pedro a carlo
I was in the USNAVY for 26 yrs and we try to have it almost everyday at sea
Di
I have my own very different twist. I use about 3 inches of fresh ginger grated, 5 cloves of garlic grated, rice vinegar. I cook it all together in chicken broth until it falls off the bones. take the skins bones and grissle out and mash it up to like pulled chicken then cook the sauce down but leave lots of sauce. it is still sticky sauce but oh so good. and very ready to just dive in. no cutting or anything once in the bowl over rice. so much easier to eat this way. I learned from someone in the Navy as well. but he slow cooked his for about 10 hours. and yes I did 15 in the Navy
Marnie
Thanks for sharing this recipe. There are many variations to making filipino-style adobo, and I found that yours comes closest to the version my mom made for me!
Lisa Goldfinger
Thanks Marnie!
Shane
Great recipe.
I make this pretty often, a few of the additions, I have made are an onion or two chopped up (great in the reduced sauce).
1 Star Anise is also a great way to mix it up and traditional to lots of the Philippines. I haven't reduced my sauce in the past but am going to now.
Great site - I'm going to try the peanut stew once it cools off.
Lisa Goldfinger
Thanks for the suggestions! I'll try the star anise next time.
carlos
I have heard wonderful things about "ADOBO" but how is it prepared ? would any one share the recipe ?
thanks
★★★★★
Marlene
I love adobo. Glad I met you at #fwcon and reading more of your International cuisine
Lisa Goldfinger
Great meeting you Marlene! I'm looking forward to exploring the healthy and delicious recipes on noshmyway.com
marina
wow, so simple! Will add this to my list of recipes to do! I thought this dish is a lot more complicated! Love your website by the way:-)
Lisa Goldfinger
Thanks Marina!
Carol at Wild Goose Tea
I was once invited to a love dinner at someone's home featuring food from the
Philippines. This chicken dish was one of the main dishes. Awesome! How wonderful to have a recipe right under my nose. The sauce is to die for.
Loreta Erickson
I agree!!
★★★★★
Jeanette | Jeanette's Healthy Living
I adore chicken adobo - my mom used to make this growing up and it's still a family favorite.