Chicken Adobo

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This recipe for chicken adobo is so simple but very delicious. You just need a few ingredients and you can make them any time or ahead. You can mix it with leftover rice and or eggs for breakfast or dinner.

What is Adobo?

Adobo is a Filipino national dish that means “marinade, sauce, or seasoning”. Although adobo can be made quicker by skipping to marinate, the flavors are more subtle and complex if you take the time to marinate your meat, chicken or fish first.

How to cook?

The first step is preparing your meat and sauce for marinating. In this recipe, I have chicken wings available but you can choose any type of meat hand. I a small plate, I mix soy sauce, vinegar and garlic powder. I found that this mixture a minimal but perfect combination for the marinade sauce. Combine all the above ingredients and marinate it for 30 minutes up to overnight. You can skip marination if you if there’s not enough time. Your adobo will still be delicious. The marinating process will allow all the flavors of the sauce to mix with the meat.

Main Ingredients and Substitution

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Marinade

Chicken Wings. Any cut of chicken, meat or fish ok.

Soy Sauce. In this recipe, I use dark soy sauce. If you are wondering what is the difference between light and dark soy sauce, light soy sauce is used for seasoning and dark soy sauce is used for adding color to dishes. Light soy sauce is golden brown in color and rich in taste to add flavor during marinating and seasoning stage and it is also higher in salt. You can use either or but for me, dark soy sauce that adds the color stands out.

Vinegar. I use white vinegar. If you need a different vinegar to substitute for white vinegar, use apple cider vinegar or sherry vinegar. Depending on your recipe, you could also swap in lemon or lime juice. Acidic ingredients like vinegar or lemon juice weaken collagen and protein in meat. Once the proteins are broken by acid, one loose protein can bond with another and trap liquid in the meat, making it juicy and tender.

Garlic powder. Garlic powder has a potent flavor in my opinion than minced garlic but we still need fresh minced garlic for sauteing. If you can not stand garlic, you can omit it from the dish.

Here are some more ingredients for cooking

• fresh onion and garlic;
• peppercorns – or coarse cracked pepper;
• sugar – brown best, white sugar, honey or mapple syrup is ok
• bay leaves – fresh or dried, not the end of the world if you don’t have;
• salt and pepper to taste
• green onion – optional garnish

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