Bringing Filipino Soups to Your Kitchen: Recipes and Stories
My youngest is not a fan of Filipino food (yet). We’ve had some successes in the sweet department (pandesal, suman, tsokolate) but let’s just say that the rest of his palette is still firmly in the Western category. One of his favorite things to do though, is to higop sabaw (sip soup with gusto), so when we make tinola, nilaga or bulalo at home, we make a milder version for him. Like with all things parenting, developing his Filipino palette is a practice of baby steps. So we are taking it, one sip at a time.
The Role of Soups in Filipino Cuisine
Unlike in colder climates, where soup is associated with winter, in the Philippines, it is eaten year-round. It is commonly prepared for everyday meals, as well as to comfort the sick or welcome guests.
In her essay “Why Sinigang?”, Doreen Fernandez describes Filipino food as deeply tied to the land and shaped by available ingredients. I first read this essay for college English class and it was the first piece of food writing that really blew me away. Her simple writing and her insight on how Filipino food is intentionally simple in taste to highlight the freshness of the ingredients has stayed with me and has changed the way I see Filipino food.
This insight is especially true for Filipino soups, which has been a part of Filipino cuisine since pre-colonial times, when indigenous communities relied on boiling (laga) as a primary cooking method. The abundance of fresh ingredients—meat, seafood, vegetables, and natural souring agents—shaped regional variations of soups. With the arrival of the Spanish and later Chinese influences, new soup-based dishes emerged, incorporating imported ingredients like noodles and spices.
Sinigang and the Use of Natural Sour Agents
One of the most recognizable Filipino soups is sinigang, a sour broth that can be made with pork, shrimp, or beef. Tamarind is the most common souring agent, but regional variations use green mango, batuan, or calamansi.
A fond food memory of mine is helping Manang Alice, my lola’s long time cook make sinigang na karne (Sour tamarind soup with beef). Sinigang na Karne in my family is a sour soup made with beef, cut into small cubes in a tomato, onion, tamarind broth, potato cubes and snake beans. I remember helping her prepare the ingredients, and then she took me outside to pick young tamarind leaves. I remember being really fascinated by how you can just get food from the tree by the road and not the market, how you took a stick and slid the little leaves off the branches, but the real mouthwatering revelation was the difference those little leaves made to the broth. These simple little leaves added a rounded tartness, a delicate freshness and a balance to a soup that made you keep slurping for more.
Variety of Filipino Soups
Filipino soups vary in flavor and ingredients, from sour to bitter to creamy and mild. Below are some notable examples from all over the country:
Luzon
Sinigang – A tamarind-based sour soup with pork, shrimp, or beef. (Recipe)
Bulalo – A clear beef marrow soup from Batangas. (Recipe)
Tinola – A ginger-based chicken soup with green papaya. (Recipe)
Papaitan – A bitter soup made with goat or beef innards, flavored with bile. (Recipe)
Arroz Caldo – A Filipino-style chicken congee with ginger. (Recipe)
Visayas
Batchoy – A pork and noodle soup with a rich broth from Iloilo. (Recipe)
Laswa- a simple Ilonggo vegetable soup made by boiling a mix of fresh local produce like squash, okra, eggplant, and malunggay in a light, clear broth. (Recipe).
KBL (Kadyos, Baboy, Langka) – A Bacolod dish with pigeon peas, pork, and jackfruit, soured with batuan. (Recipe)
Mindanao
Tiyula Itum – A black beef soup from the Tausug people, colored with burnt coconut. (Recipe)
Piyanggang Manok – A chicken soup with coconut and turmeric. (Recipe)
Law-uy – A simple vegetable soup made with fresh, local produce. (Recipe)
Sweet Soup Variations
Some Filipino soups lean toward dessert, commonly made with coconut milk and sticky rice:
Champorado – A chocolate rice porridge. (Recipe)
Ginataang Mais – A warm coconut milk and corn porridge. (Recipe)
Bilo-Bilo – A sticky rice ball soup cooked in coconut milk. (Recipe)
Recreating Filipino Soups Abroad
Luckily, living in Singapore, we have access to a lot of the ingredients for Filipino soups as many are also used in the regional cuisine here. We are also just a 3.5 hour flight away from the Philippines so it’s not always that hard to find the basics. But for Filipinos living farther away, it can be a bit more challenging. Ingredients like tamarind, batuan, or patis may not always be available, but substitutes like lemon or vinegar can help approximate flavors. Asian grocery stores often carry key ingredients, and some soups, like tinola or bulalo, are easier to replicate with locally available produce.
Making traditional soups can be a way to stay connected to their heritage, thought getting your kids to eat them is a different challenge.
I’m still working on getting my kids to like Filipino soups. When they were younger, they enjoyed tinola, but now their preferences have shifted. My older one sometimes likes sinigang, but not always. I’m hoping that as they grow, their tastes will evolve, and they’ll develop a deeper appreciation for these dishes. Cooking these recipes regularly keeps them familiar, ensuring that even if they don’t love them now, they will recognize and hopefully embrace these flavors later in life.
What’s your go to Filipino soup?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
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