Popular Filipino Dishes

Learn about soups, rice dishes, vegetable dishes, noodle dishes, and more.

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Top Filipino Soup Dishes

  • Sinigang (Filipino sour soup of pork, beef, or seafood with vegetables)
  • Tinola (chicken ginger soup with native green papaya and moringa leaves)
  • Nilaga and bulalo (beef broth, and beef bone soup with vegetables)
  • Binakol (chicken soup with native green papaya, leafy vegetables, lemongrass, coconut water, and shaved coconut meat from the Aklan Province in Visayas)
  • Pinikpikan (traditional chicken soup from the mountainous Cordillera Autonomous Region in Northern Luzon)
  • Tiyola Itum (black braised beef, or goat soup, colored by charred coconut meat from Sulu, Mindanao)
  • Noodle Soups (sopas – macaroni soup with vegetables and evaporated milk; misua – wheat vermicelli in pork bone broth; lomi – fresh egg noodles, meats, and vegetables in a thick gravy-like soup; mami – the most common wheat noodle in any meat broth usually with wonton dumplings; batchoy – egg noodles soup with offal, chicken, beef, and vegetables topped with crunchy pork rinds and raw egg; sotanghon – vermicelli in chicken broth)

Top Filipino Rice Dishes

  • Paella (saffron-flavored Arborio rice with various meat, seafood, and vegetables, then “Filipinized” with tomato sauce)
  • Arroz Valenciana (an adaptation of paella: glutinous rice, coconut milk, chicken, chorizo, and saffron or annatto seeds if not available. Bringhe is another kind of arroz dish that’s wrapped in banana leaves and usually made with chicken liver, gizzard, and meat)
  • Meat si-log are breakfast staples of any type of cured or fried meat or seafood with sinangag (stir-fried day-old rice with lots of garlic) and itlog (fried egg). Typical examples are bang si-log (fried milkfish with sinangag and itlog); to si-log (chicken or pork tocino, a salty-sweet, cured meat with singangag and itlog); long si-log (longanisa, pork sausage links with singangag and itlog); tap si-log (chicken, pork or beef tapa, cured meat with singangag and itlog).
  • Rice porridges like arroz caldo (traditional beef rice porridge); goto (tripe rice porridge); lugaw (basic rice porridge usually served with toppings to compliment the plain flavor); pospas de gallina (chicken arroz caldo)
  • Sweet rice porridges champorado (sweet rice porridge made from cacao disks known to the region); ube champorado (sweet rice porridge made from purple yam); ginataang mais (sweet corn, glutinous rice, and coconut milk); lelot balatong (ginataang munggo, toasted mung beans, glutinous rice and coconut milk).
  • Native rice cakes like bibingkang galapong (traditional Christmas rice cakes), putobumbong (steamed purple glutinous rice cakes), puto (steamed rice cakes topped with cheese), biko (glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk, and topped with reduced coconut milk), bibingkang malagkit, (baked sugar, coconut milk, and cream flavored glutinous rice cake) and suman (glutinous rice cooked with sugar, and coconut cream wrapped in banana leaves).

Top Filipino Vegetable Dishes

  • Utan (also called law-uy is a Visayan vegetable soup)
  • Laing (taro leaves cooked in creamy coconut milk spiced with red chili from Bicol Region in Luzon)
  • Pakbet (traditional vegetable dish flavored by fermented shrimp or fish paste from Ilocos Region in Luzon)
  • Tortang talong (roasted eggplant omelet served with banana catsup)
  • Mga ginataang gulay (vegetables cooked in coconut milk. Usual combination is squash and beans stewed in coconut milk, jackfruit, snap beans, and ground pork with coconut milk)
  • Mga guinisang gulay (vegetable sautés or stews like mung beans, chayote, beans, and a variety of vegetables)

Top Filipino Noodle Dishes

  • Pancit habhab (dried flour noodles with vegetables eaten (usually slurped) on the cut banana leaves they are served on from Quezon province in Luzon)
  • Pancit guisado (the most typical type of pancit of Chinese influence, rice vermicelli, egg noodles, wheat noodles, or other types of noodles that is stir-fried with meats and vegetables, flavored with soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and sesame oil)
  • Palabok (rice noodles with a rich orange shrimp broth)

Top Filipino Meat & Seafood Dishes

Chicken

  • Chicken inasal (chicken marinated in calamondin, lemongrass, salt, and pepper, skewered then char-grilled, from Negros Occidental, Visayas)

Pork

  • Adobo (stewed pork in oil, garlic, bay leaf, vinegar, and soy sauce)
  • Lechon (spit-roasted over coal whole pig, a feast or celebration specialty food)
  • Sisig (sautéed pork face, liver, and belly in butter, with onions, and chili from Pampanga, Luzon)

Beef

  • Kare-Kare (beef stewed in ground toasted rice, and chopped peanuts with vegetables)
  • Kaldereta (beef or goat meat, lever, and vegetable stew)

Seafood

  • Kinilaw (raw fish marinated in vinegar)
  • Daing (any type of fish that is marinated, and then sun-dried)

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