Chicken Adobo - Authentic, Easy

Recipe: Chicken Adobo Recipe »

Chicken adobo is one of the most beloved Filipino dishes and it is incredibly easy to make at home. Chicken is braised in a rich, tangy sauce of soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, bay leaves and peppercorns until tender and deeply flavoursome. This authentic recipe shows you how to balance the salty, sour and slightly sweet flavours that make Filipino adobo so moreish. Serve with steamed rice for a comforting, classic meal.

About This Chicken Adobo

Chicken Adobo is the unofficial national dish of the Philippines. It's an absolutely delicious and made with chicken braised in soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and bay leaves. It's so simple but so tasty. This authentic recipe comes from Del, a fantastic home cook who takes care of my mother and sister in Singapore.

Honestly you will be shocked at how tasty but easy adobo is and how it comes together with such simple ingredients that you probably have in your pantry!

What's the difference between Filipino Adobo and Spanish Adobo? Philippine adobo is very different from Spanish adobo which is kind of confusing given the Spanish colonial influence in the Philippines. Both were used as a way to preserve meat using marinades but Philippine adobo is about soy sauce and vinegar while Spanish adobo is about paprika and oregano.

Video How To Make Chicken Adobo

Video: How to Make Filipino Adobo Chicken

Ingredients For Chicken Adobo

Chicken pieces - Bone in or boneless chicken thigh cutlets are excellent for adobo. Chicken wings are also popular. Boneless chicken has an advantage as it won't take as long to cook (around 10-15 minutes). You can also sub chicken for pork belly pieces. This is Del's favourite type of adobo.

Soy sauce - We are using regular light soy sauce for flavour and dark soy sauce for colour. Both can be found at larger supermarkets or Asian supermarkets.

Garlic cloves - Use 3 large or 4 medium garlic cloves.

Onion - Use white, brown or red onion.

Vinegar - A lot of people use coconut vinegar but we tested it with regular white vinegar and this works really well for adobo too.

Black peppercorns - Whole black peppercorns. These will cook down to soft and will be edible whole.

Brown sugar - Regular light or dark brown sugar works with this. The amount of sugar depends on personal preference. Adobo has a slight tang in it from the vinegar but is also sweet.

Bay leaves - Fresh or dried bay leaves add aroma to the dish.

Tips For Making Chicken Adobo

1 - Take the time to marinate and brown the chicken first for a better, richer flavour. The flavour really penetrates through to the bone even in the space of 1 hour marinating. Del also cuts the bone-in chicken thighs in half so that the marinade penetrates through the meat.

2 - Balance the flavour of the vinegar and the sugar according to your personal preference. When we made this for my family they don't like a strong vinegar flavour so we upped the sugar in this. Try adding half of the sugar and then taste it and if it needs more sugar add it one tablespoon at a time. It also depends on whether you're using white vinegar or coconut vinegar as the latter is milder.

3 - The whole peppercorns cook in the sauce. You don't need to pick them out as they become milder and softer.

4 - Cook the adobo with the lid on the pan, otherwise the sauce will evaporate.

5 - Don't add the sugar in until the last step as it can burn.

6 - Serve this with steamed rice and a side of vegetables like steamed broccoli.

7 - Chicken adobo is suitable for freezing where it will last for 3 months in the freezer. It also keeps in the fridge for up to 4-5 days where the flavour develops even further. Adobo is great for meal prepping!

Other delicious Filipino chicken recipes to try next are: Chicken Inasal. I have another recipe for Chicken Adobo that uses tomato in it too!

Chicken Adobo Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 10 minutes plus marinating time

Cooking time: 40 minutes

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients Needed

• 1kg/2.2lbs chicken thighs skin on or off, bone in or boneless (around 5-6 bone in, 7-8 boneless)
• 60ml/2.1fl oz light soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
• 3-4 garlic cloves
• 1 onion, peeled and sliced
• 150ml/5.3fl oz water
• 50ml/1.7 fl oz white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 50g/1.7oz brown sugar (or to taste)
• 3 bay leaves

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 MARINATE - Crush garlic cloves and mix with the soy sauce. Marinate chicken in this mixture for 1-2 hours in the fridge (I do this in a ziplock bag).

Step 2 BROWN - Add 2 teaspoons of oil to a large pot or high sided skillet and brown the chicken on both sides. If there is a lot of oil drain most of it off leaving around 1 teaspoon of oil.

Step 3 SIMMER - Move the chicken to one side, and then add the onion to the pan. Fry until soft, and then place the chicken skin side up and add the water, vinegar, black peppercorns and bay leaves. Reduce heat to low medium heat. Simmer with the lid on, and cook for 15 minutes. Then turn the chicken over and simmer for 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

Step 4 FINISH - Lastly, add the sugar into the sauce and turn the chicken skin side up. Cook for 5 minutes until the sauce reduces.

Personal Note

When I got to Singapore for my father's funeral, this was one of the first things I made with Del, my family's helper. She has been an invaluable support for my family and is always cooking them delicious things like this to help them get through this mourning period.

My father's funeral was set for the Thursday, two days after Chinese New Year. The speeches were fitting and commemorated his quirky nature and the fact that he spent most of his life living in Sydney and even til the end he lived on Sydney time waking up at 4am every day (aka 7am Sydney time). They good naturedly poked fun at his favourite habit of disappearing at the end of every party at their house to sneak upstairs to sleep (some call it an Irish goodbye, to us it was just him).

Afterwards we hosted a wake at their condo for the friends and relatives. We made sure to get all of his favourite foods: beef rendang and chicken curry from Violet Oon, char siu, siu yuk, roast duck from Kham's and a large 1.2kg kueh lapis from Bengawan Solo. All with his very favourite food, steamed rice.

I also made everyone's favourite hokkien noodles and brought over some unbaked frozen Portuguese tarts from Sydney that he adored so much. We packed them in a cooler bag surrounded by frozen ice bricks and stowed them in the checked baggage. On top I put two bags of ziplocked ice just in case. We figured that the hold of a plane is a bit colder that way and it would be surrounded by clothing to keep the cold in even more. At the very least they would defrost slowly on the plane and we could bake them on the first night.

To our surprise, everything including the ice remained solid and chilled and the Portuguese tarts baked up beautifully. I think my father would have loved to have been a guest at his wake, although this time he was the guest of honour.

So tell me Dear Reader, if this isn't a morbid question, what foods would you want served at your wake that represent you?