Hi friends! Apologies again for being absent on here. (We moved! And it has taken over literally the last two months of my life.)
But with May coming to an end, Asian-American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month is also coming to an end. To celebrate on my blog, I want to share my favorite Filipino recipes I’ve found online.
Unlike other Filipinos, my love for Filipino food didn’t come from all my mom’s home cooking 🙈 Growing up, my Lolo (“grandpa” in Tagalog”) was the one who cooked for us. He came from the Philippines to live with us when I was 4-years-old, and from then he became the main Filipino chef in our household. You can say my mom was lucky because she had her dad around to cook her favorite home-cooked meals. And looking back at it now, I was lucky as well.
When my Lolo’s health declined, he moved back to the Philippines, and unfortunately passed away. And sadly for our stomachs, we never got to savor our last home cooked meal made by Lolo. And when this happened, my mom actually started to teach herself how to cook more, and since I was an adult by this time, I started to teach myself how to cook Filipino food as well.
And where does a college-aged Fil-Am go to learn? You go onto Google, search your favorite dishes, and it was basically trial and error from there.
Here are my 5 favorite Filipino recipes that have become staple recipes in my Fil-Am household:
1. Lumpia Shanghai
Lumpia Shanghai: Filipino egg roll
I’ve tried many different Filipino recipe sites in the last decade, but my go-to is always is Panlasang Pinoy. When I’m craving lumpia, this recipe does the trick!
2. Adobo
Adobo: popular dish made with meat of choice commonly made with vinegar, soy sauce, and bay leaves.
I actually stumbled upon this recipe on accident. I was watching my favorite vlogger, who also happens to be Fil-Am, when a video came up where here non-Filipino husband makes adobo with her Filipino mom. I could literally smell the adobo through the screen as I watched them so I had to try it. It instantly became a staple in our household!
3. Chicken Tinola
Tinola: a chicken soup dish made in a ginger broth.
Simple and delicious – my kids LOVE tinola. It’s great dinner on a cold winter night or when someone is feeling a little under the weather in my house. This recipe is truly a one pot wonder. And this recipe from all recipes.com has been my go-to for years, I have it memorized.
4. Giniling
Giniling: literally translated in Tagalog means “ground beef”. But as a dish, giniling is ground beef usually with carrots, potatoes, and tomato sauce.
Out of all the recipes I’m sharing this took me the longest to find. Over the years I have stumbled upon many variations of giniling, but I found this closest to how I’ve had it my whole life.
I especially love making giniling to make it into torta! If you make the giniling recipe and have leftovers, you can easily use the leftover meat for this “Filipino omelette” dish.
5. Pork Tausi
Tausi: a pork dish made with black beans.
This dish is near and dear to my heart because it’s something I’ve only eaten from my Lolo. I’ve never tried anyone else’s version of it nor I have ever seen it in any Filipino restaurants. It wasn’t until a few months ago I was really craving it. My mom and I took a look at this recipe together and came to the conclusion that this was very close to how my Lolo made it, and we were right. Only difference is we’d throw a little cilantro in there.
If you make any of these recipes, let me know with a comment. Happy cooking, friends! And happy Asian-American Pacific Islander Month 🙂
Zherr-Anne, the Fil-Am Mama 