Creative Filipino Food

Som Tam is a bright, refreshing salad you’ll find on just about every street corner in Bangkok, made with classic Thai ingredients like palm sugar, roasted peanuts, dried shrimp, and thinly sliced green papaya. The ingredients are pounded together with a mortar and pestle, bringing out the intensity of the aromatics and letting the green papaya absorb the tangy, sweet, and salty dressing.

Our recipe takes inspiration from the method and flavors of Som Tam, but we used ingredients you’re more likely to find in any Filipino grocery store. We added green mango, which is seen in some versions of Thai Som Tam, and swapped out traditional ingredients like palm sugar and lime juice with brown sugar and calamansi, but this recipe is flexible. Add or remove ingredients to suit your taste and play around with the ratios to find your perfect balance.

Still, we do have one non-negotiable: Whatever you do, you have to use a mortar and pestle.

The mortar and pestle, called khrok (ครก) and sak (สาก), are essential tools in Thai kitchens, particularly in recipes such as Som Tam, as well as the curry and chili pastes that are used in many iconic Thai dishes. They’re used so often that Thai kitchens will often have 

One made of stone designed especially for grinding up pastes and smashing harder ingredients.

A lighter kind, made of baked-clay with a hardwood pestle, for more gentle applications like bruising tender ingredients like green papaya.

For this recipe, we recommend the baked-clay mortar and wooden pestle, but the heavy stone kind works too, as long as you work with a light hand. This is especially important when you’re pounding the green papaya.

We hear what you’re thinking: Can’t I just dice my ingredients, or use a food processor? A mortar and pestle may sound tedious, but pounding the ingredients with a pestle releases natural flavors and brings out aromas in ways you just can’t get from normal chopping. It’s the key to the vibrant, punchy flavors that pop out in this dish.

Som Tam calls for thinly sliced green papaya, about 3-5 inches in length. Traditionally, the papaya is peeled and cut by hand to make irregular shreds, providing a variation in texture with larger, crunchier pieces, as well as smaller, thinner slices–we prefer this method! But if you like delicate, uniform slices, you can also use a mandoline, or a 

Whichever method you choose, it’s worth noting that this salad is best eaten fresh. The papaya may grow soggy if you let it sit too long, but we’re not too worried about that. This salad will be gone from your table before you know it.

Ingredients

Filipino Papaya Salad

This vibrantly sour, salty, and sweet salad puts a Filipino spin on the classic Som Tam Thai made with green papaya.

 and giniling are more common iterations of the Filipino omelet, but did you know that you can use fish as well? 

When you’re cooking for a family you’ll often have leftovers, like two or three pieces of fried galunggong (or any other fish) that you served on the side of a vegetable dish, just sitting on your dining table. Or maybe you still have a few pieces left in an ice cream tub, in an almost-forgotten corner of your freezer.

Don’t throw it out. Shred it up, add some eggs, and fry it until it’s nice and crispy. Serve with green onions and chili oil (or crisps) if you like a bit of heat, and we promise this dish will soon become a staple in your kitchen.

Tortang Galunggong

For Serving

Tortang Galunggong (Filipino Fish Omelet)

If you’re stuck with some leftover fish, torta is a quick, easy, and cheap way to use it up. This version uses galunggong, giving it a salty, craveable quality.

Before you say "cholesterol" and run, try adding a spoonful of 

 to your next last-minute noodle situation. In the case of these chili oil knife-cut noodles, the orange paste adds a buttery, 

 richness and a nuanced seafood flavor to the 15-minute dish.

Knife-cut noodles (or dao xiao mian) come from China’s Shanxi province. As the name implies, they’re made by thinly slicing a block of stiff dough into boiling water. This forms ribbon-like noodles that are thicker and chewier than the usual hand-pulled variety. When cooked, knife-cut noodles curl and form 

Are knife-cut noodles available in the Philippines?

Unless your supermarket is cool, you probably won't find instant knife-cut noodles there. Check out specialty Asian groceries or 

If you have flour and water, you can also 

Aligue (Crab Fat Paste) Chili Oil Noodles

Toss your noodles in hot, fragrant, and richly flavored aligue (crab fat paste) chili oil.

French toast does not discriminate. You can make it with 

 is fair game. If you can soak it in custard and fry it in a butter-slicked pan, you can French toast it.

 Absolutely. Ryle's mom makes a rich and simple soak with eggs and three milks: fresh milk, evaporated milk, and condensed milk. Make sure to slice and open up your pandesal—exposing its soft interior will help it hold more custard.

Easy Pandesal French Toast

Transform your stale, leftover pandesal into French toast with eggs and a three-milk soak. Simple yet rich, and definitely a breakfast to wake up for.

Whether in a pinch or on purpose, bagoong works as a surprising 

 It's funkier and saltier, for sure. But with a careful hand, the Pinoy condiment delivers that meaty umami that makes 

 so good. And while we're here, we added two more local ingredients to the mix—chicken oil and grated quezo de bola—to make a Filipino Caesar salad.

Headline Title

 Instead of anchovy fillets, this Caesar salad uses bagoong, or Filipino shrimp paste. It works 

 so why not in salad dressing? Use a bagoong brand you love.

 Freshly shaved Parm? Nope. This salad uses grated quezo de bola. The semi-hard cheese has a nutty, mildly salty flavor that works not just over ensaymada, but showered over a salad, too.

 Homemade croutons beat store-bought croutons any day. Just slice some bread into small squares, coat lightly in oil, then toast until crunchy. And instead of using neutral or olive oil, we toss our bread pieces in 

—the liquid gold that goes on your rice with 

 Annatto-colored oil will color the croutons a bit, but will still be savory and delicious.

How to Make Chicken Oil From Scratch

Can I make this recipe without the raw egg yolk?

If the idea of raw, uncooked eggs in your salad dressing makes you squeamish, that's OK. We get it! Replace the egg yolk in the recipe with 1–2 tbsp mayonnaise instead and follow the recipe as is. Zero anxiety, same creamy dressing. Plus, you won't need to fuss over emulsions!

Chicken Croutons

Filipino Caesar Salad

Make Chicken Croutons

Make Salad Dressing

Assemble Salad

Filipino Caesar Salad with Chicken Croutons

Give your classic Caesar salad the Pinoy treatment with bagoong-based Caesar dressing, grated quezo de bola, and chicken fat croutons.

Proof that eggs can make anything better: Take a page from 

 and crack a few into laing, the earthy Filipino stew made with taro leaves, for richness and color.

Laing hails from the region of Bicol, home to 

 in Bikolano) are stewed in a broth of ginger, coconut milk, and red chilies. Some cooks like to add meat or seafood for a bit of protein.

Shakshouka is a North African and Middle Eastern dish of eggs poached in a thick and tangy tomato-based sauce. Aromatic spices like cumin, paprika, and cayenne pepper give it a warm, complex flavor. Its simplicity makes it easy to throw in some leafy vegetables, like spinach, or even cheese. You want crusty bread or pita on the side to mop up the luscious eggs and sauce.

Laing and shakshouka = versatile, veg-heavy dishes

Laing has a rich and saucy consistency similar to shakshouka, making it thick enough to simmer eggs in. And the protein doesn't have to stop there—you can customize it with pork, shrimp, or fish to add more meatiness. Want more vegetables? Try crunchy sigarilyas or 

 Then skip the shakshouka-required crusty bread for a hot bowl of steamed rice.

Laing (Taro Leaves in Coconut Milk) with Eggs, Shakshouka-Style

Treat your laing like a shakshouka and add eggs!

 these maruya pancakes make a delicious compromise. Ripe 

 dipped in batter then cooked in a pan, give these pancakes distinct bites of creamy fruit. To get some of that crisp maruya-esque texture, you want dark pancake edges just shy of burnt. Finish it off with powdered sugar for a sweet breakfast; add a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream if you're 

What's the difference between a fritter and a pancake?

 consists of an ingredient coated (usually dipped) in batter, then deep-fried in hot oil until crispy. The Filipino term 

 refers to fritters. Examples include okoy (also called maruyang hipon) and kwek-kwek.

 on the other hand, is exactly what the name implies: a thin cake cooked in a pan with a bit of fat. Pancakes usually have bigger portions than a fritter. Ingredients, if any, are mixed into the batter, like in Japanese okonomiyaki or Korean pajeon.

These maruya pancakes straddle the line between the two. You dip saba bananas in the batter like a fritter, then cook it in a skillet like a pancake. So is it a fritter or is it a pancake, who knows—all we're sure of is you'll want to make a double batch.

Maruya Pancakes

Saba Maruya (Filipino Banana Fritter) Pancakes

Instead of mashing fruit into the batter, these maruya-inspired pancakes have whole saba bananas tucked in the center.

What's Asian, has beef and onions cooked in a savory brown sauce, and served with steamed rice? You might answer 

 or Filipino beefsteak. Or gyudon, Japan's famous beef bowl.

This recipe wonders: What happens when you have a little bit of both?

Thanks to some Japanese influence, this gyudon-inspired bistek turns out better than the traditional version. How? By solving one of its most common problems: overcooked, leathery meat.

Thinly sliced beef = tender, quick-cooking bistek

 bistek traditionally uses sirloin. When cooked right, you get soft, chewy chunks of beef. But overcook it—which is extremely easy to do!—and that chewy texture turns into a jaw workout real fast.

 does a few things better than your usual sirloin:

You don't need to tenderize, marinate, or velvet it beforehand to keep it soft.

It's easier to eat, making it a great rice bowl topping.

Some groceries package thinly sliced beef for shabu-shabu or sukiyaki. We suggest looking for a slab of short plate or beef belly, par-freezing it until firm but not solid, and slicing it into strips yourself using a sharp knife.

Filipino Bistek, Gyudon (Japanese Beef Bowl) Style 

Using thinly sliced beef instead of sirloin makes a tender, quick-cooking bistek you can serve over rice—just like Japanese gyudon.

Got ube halaya sitting in the fridge? If you're not making 

 consider a bowl of ube champorado. Making it is as easy as the classic chocolate version—instead of tablea, ube halaya and ube essence gives this champorado its flavor and color.

In the late 17th century, galleons brought chocolate to the Philippines along with Mexican 

: a hot chocolate beverage thickened with masa harina, the corn flour used to make tortillas.

And in the absence of masa, locals used malagkit (glutinous rice) in its stead to make 

 a rich chocolate porridge to enjoy for breakfast or on rainy days.

However, it's not as straightforward as dropping halaya into your cooked rice. If you do that, you'll get a barely-purple porridge with just a whisper of flavor.

Enter ube essence, which works like a good push-up bra for ube halaya. Just a teaspoon enhances both the color and flavor, creating a vibrant ube champorado.

Once you have these two ingredients, mix them with evaporated milk in a saucepan. This forms a smooth, milky base that you can easily stir into your cooked rice.

The Rice: Use a Mix of Malagkit and Jasmine

Most champorado recipes use malagkit rice, or 

For the best texture, we took a page from our 

 and used equal parts malagkit and jasmine rice.

When cooked, jasmine rice gets you distinct, fluffy grains with a chewy bite—a nice textural contrast to creamy, 

You'll usually find champorado topped with extra milk and salty fish, like crispy dilis or fried danggit.

 we top our ube champorado with grated processed cheese. You can go the kakanin direction and try toasted coconut, latik (toasted coconut curds), or crunchy pinipig. Then there's the splash of milk for extra creaminess—you can use evaporated or coconut milk.

Ube (Purple Yam) Champorado

Got ube halaya? Ube champorado is just as sweet, creamy, and comforting as your classic chocolate champorado.

Let canned cream of mushroom live a life beyond heat-and-eat soup. In this recipe, we use it as an instant substitute for 

Once you've made your spaghetti, it goes into a baking dish in a single layer. Cream of mushroom, warmed on the stove and seasoned with a bit of nutmeg, follows on top. Shredded mozzarella and cheddar help it bake up into a blanket of 

 It's all the joy and pleasure of children's party spaghetti tucked into a dinner party dish. What's not to like?

Filipino Spaghetti

Cheesy Cream of Mushroom Topping

Make Filipino Spaghetti

Bake Spaghetti

Baked Filipino Spaghetti

Top this baked Filipino spaghetti with two kinds of cheese and one surprise ingredient: cream of mushroom soup.

Spaghetti with garlic and oil, or Aglio e Olio, provides a stage for 

 to shine in the spotlight. In a pasta setting, the fishy Filipino condiment makes sense when you think of it like anchovies: both transform sauces with their salty, briny meatiness.

Undercooking your pasta sounds like an error, but don't worry. The pasta will finish al dente in the pan, coated in the glossy garlic-bagoong sauce. A garnish of lemony toasted breadcrumbs add a sunny crunch.

Breadcrumb Topping

Bagoong Aglio E Olio

Bagoong Aglio e Olio (Pasta in Bagoong, Garlic, & Oil)

Bagoong makes a flavorful addition to classic aglio e olio, or spaghetti in garlic and oil.

Kangkong stems, often discarded in favor of the 

Our chef, Selina, got this gising-gising recipe from her dad, who led a vegetarian lifestyle for over 25 years. Most of the prep time goes into chopping the 

 stems into inch-long pieces. Simmering in 

This recipe has another unusual gising-gising ingredient: charred 

. Smoky talong adds a velvety, meaty body to go with the soft stems. Mash them as you would with tortang talong, season with salt, and slice into small slabs to make a bed for the kangkong stems.

Prepare Eggplant Base

Make Gising-Gising

Water Spinach (Kangkong) Stem Gising-Gising

Don't throw your kangkong stems away. Chop them up and make this spicy gising-gising served over roasted eggplant.

If you're craving sisig at home, you're less likely to cleave 

 than to reach for the ready-to-cook sisig. Whether frozen or 

 it's ready to dump onto a hot skillet at a moment's notice.

And while sisig makes for amazing pulutan, the dish can feel too greasy for lunch. Our solution: turn it into fried rice. The extra carb balances out the fat;  so does the bright, zippy calamansi mayo that goes on top. Crispy eggs complete the dish.

Calamansi Mayo

Sisig Fried Rice

Make Calamansi Mayo

Make Sisig Fried Rice

Sisig Fried Rice with Calamansi Mayo

Imagine if your tapsilog was crispy, not chewy. This twist on Filipino tapa does just that, with a process closer to 

 than your traditional marinated and air-dried beef: It's battered, fried, and glazed in sauce.

 A light coating of cornstarch with some black pepper—that’s it.

 A shallow-fry in a pool of hot oil, just deep enough to cover the thin strips of tapa.

 The classic tapa marinade of garlic, soy sauce, black pepper, and calamansi juice, reduced until thick, syrupy, and concentrated with flavor.

 when making tapa. This recipe makes use of fatty beef belly, which we've made the case for in our 

 You want it thinly sliced, like beef bacon.

Some groceries sell thinly sliced beef belly in packs for 

 and hotpot. Try to avoid sukiyaki cuts—they can vary wildly in terms of thickness and parts used. Better to buy a slab and ask your butcher to slice it for you, or par-freeze it at home to slice yourself.

Crispy Tapa

Tapa Reduction

Crispy Beef Tapa

Crispy battered beef belly dressed in garlicky tapa reduction just made your breakfast silog more exciting.

When you add a heap of green onions to gingery, chicken-packed 

 form. The ginger-scallion flavor permeates the entire dish, from the flavorful broth to the shredded chicken, all the way to the extra ginger scallion sauce drizzled on top. Everything else is Hainanese chicken-inspired: crispy chicken skin for texture, soy sauce for roundness, and sliced cucumbers for freshness and crunch. Different flavor, same nourishing hug in a bowl.

For a More Flavorful Broth, Use Chicken Bones

After shredding the chicken, add the chicken bones and scraps back into the broth. Add a cup of water at a time and continue simmering, skimming any scum and impurities that arise on the surface.

Want a clear broth? Pour it through a fine mesh strainer before using.

If you have the time, scrape off the extra fat from the chicken skin before frying. You'll get crispier and more brittle chicken skin for it.

Ginger Scallion Sauce

Chicken Broth

Crispy Chicken Skin

Arroz Caldo

Make Ginger Scallion Sauce

Prepare Chicken and Broth

Cook Arroz Caldo

Hainanese Chicken Arroz Caldo

Transform your classic arroz caldo to a Hainanese chicken-flavored porridge by adding green onions.

Latik, the coconut caramel usually draped over kakanin like suman and biko, pairs wonderfully with 

 in this tender upside-down cake. Sophisticated enough to wow your tita friends, yet familiar enough to tuck into with kids.

Upside-down cake, a classic American dessert, is a cake that's baked upside-down: topping at bottom—usually 

 and cherries—then cake batter on top. Once baked and cooled, you flip the pan over a serving plate, releasing the cake right side up.

Instead of pineapples and cherries, this Filipino upside-down cake has a topping of bananas and latik caramel.

The base is a coconut-olive oil cake base made with almond flour, 

 and extra-virgin olive oil, yielding a unique sweetness and a moist, supersoft crumb well worth the extra trip to the grocery.

Banana Latik Caramel Topping

Coconut Cake

Banana Cake with Latik Caramel

Sliced ripe bananas and syrupy latik caramel tops this moist coconut-olive oil upside-down cake.

 in this Filipino take on banana pudding. This version adapts Magnolia Bakery's 

 with local butter cookies and a turon-inspired indulgence: chunky caramelized 

 bananas and langka (jackfruit), cooked with a bit of brandy for a fun wink of flavor.

Remember when cupcakes were everywhere in the early 2000s? You can thank M Bakery—or 

The New York-based neighborhood bakery shot to fame after appearing on an episode of Sex and the City. Fans and tourists waited in long lines for their own pink-frosted 

 would jump on the trend and bring it to the Philippines with 

In 2018, Magnolia Bakery opened its first Manila branch as M Bakery. Why the name change? So you won't confuse it with a certain 

After the cupcakes, everyone knows Magnolia Bakery for their second most popular dessert offering: the 

Banana pudding is a classic dessert from the American South. Similar to 

 it's a chilled, no-bake dessert made with layers of fruit, cream, and biscuits—sliced bananas, creamy vanilla custard, and vanilla wafers—in a glass dish. Some home recipes will top it off with whipped cream or toasted meringue. 

How to Make M Bakery-Style Banana Pudding

Every banana pudding needs three things: 

This turon-inspired recipe replaces the plain sliced bananas with something more exciting: 

 (jackfruit) caramelized in brandy and sugar. Sweet, jammy, and a little chunky.

The steps for the vanilla pudding come straight from the source: the 

While the authenticity helps, simplicity is the recipe's bigger draw. The pudding comes together with just four(!) ingredients:

You can find Jell-O instant vanilla pudding mix in your supermarket's baking aisle, usually next to the gelatin. If you can't get your hands on a box, you can make vanilla pudding 

 with eggs, milk, sugar, and a bit of cornstarch.

Banana pudding purists will insist on using Nabisco 

—no substitutions. (Torey echoes the same sentiment in her cookbook.)

Since Nilla Wafers aren't available in the Philippines, we use the next best thing: 

 Any plainly-flavored crunchy cookie will work here. Once chilled, they soften and take on a more cakey texture. Save a few crushed pieces for garnishing on top.

Caramelized Banana & Langka

M Bakery-Style Caramelized Banana and Langka Pudding 

Whip up Magnolia Bakery's famous banana pudding at home with a local twist: butter cookies and a turon-inspired combo of saba and langka.

Creative Filipino Food

Filipino Papaya Salad

Tortang Galunggong (Filipino Fish Omelet)

Aligue (Crab Fat Paste) Chili Oil Noodles

Easy Pandesal French Toast

Filipino Caesar Salad with Chicken Croutons

Laing (Taro Leaves in Coconut Milk) with Eggs, Shakshouka-Style

Saba Maruya (Filipino Banana Fritter) Pancakes

Filipino Bistek, Gyudon (Japanese Beef Bowl) Style

Ube (Purple Yam) Champorado

Baked Filipino Spaghetti

Bagoong Aglio e Olio (Pasta in Bagoong, Garlic, & Oil)

Water Spinach (Kangkong) Stem Gising-Gising

Sisig Fried Rice with Calamansi Mayo

Crispy Beef Tapa

Hainanese Chicken Arroz Caldo

Banana Cake with Latik Caramel

M Bakery-Style Caramelized Banana and Langka Pudding

Smoked Galunggong (Tinapa) Dip with Dill

Kare-Kare Compound Butter

Crispy Sinigang Shrimp Shells

Cheeseburger Lumpia with Burger Sauce

Double Chocolate Champorado

Honey Bagoong Chicken Wings

No-Bake Champorado Pinipig Fudge

Cinnamon Sugar Karioka with Spiced Chocolate Sauce

Korean Corn Cheese-Filled Lumpia

Minced Pork Adobo, Lu Rou Fan-Style

Sinigang Fried Rice with Crispy Kangkong and Okra

Puffy, Crispy Thai-Style Tortang Talong

Bone Marrow Rice Porridge (Lugaw)

Halo-Halo Parfait with Cereal Milk Ice Cream

Jollibee-Inspired Ube Mochi Pie Pockets

Coconut-Muscovado Puto

Filipino Ensalada Dumplings with Bagoong-Calamansi Dip

Ube-Cheese Pandesal

Lola Nena's-Inspired Cheese-Filled Donuts

Manam-Inspired Watermelon Sinigang

Ube-Langka-Coconut Sapin-Sapin Layer Cake

Tablea Chicken and Pork Adobo

Mango Jam Rolls with Mango-Coconut Cream

Kora-Inspired Leche Flan Donuts

Lumpia Cabbage Salad with Crispy Wrappers

Pinoy BBQ Meatballs

One-Bowl Bibingka Waffles with Salted Egg and Caramel

Ube Spanish Bread

Toasted Sesame and Coconut Palitaw Horchata

No-Bake Vegan Cloud 9

Boozy Lambanog Halo-Halo with Melon and Nata de Coco

Homemade Ube Piaya (Filipino Flatbread)

Caramelized Lumpia Wrappers with Coconut Jam

Ginataang Kalabasa (Coconut-Squash) Hummus

Adobo Rice Lumpia

Leche Flan Pie with Lengua de Gato Crust

Buko Juice-Braised Crispy Pork Belly

Mango Soju Yakult Ice Candy

Adobong Lechon Kawali

Sinigang Fried Chicken