Recipe: Instant Pot Chicken Adobo

Chances are, if you’ve had Filipino food at one time or another, you’ve probably had adobo: a dish common in the Philippines that usually features some sort of meat, poultry, seafood, fruit, or vegetable cooked in a mixture of vinegar, bay leaves, garlic, black pepper, and a combination of salt and/or soy sauce. Although simple in nature, these braises are always complex and robust, yet remain nuanced and balanced.

For my adobo, I like to start with a two-to-one ratio of vinegar to soy, knowing that the vinegar will mellow and become less potent as it cooks, and that the salt and umami in the soy will balance any remaining tartness. Black pepper adds a bit of spice, a couple bay leaves add earthiness, and the garlic just plain tastes good! I also like to use skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs in my adobo because they are easy to find, hard to overcook, and give off a good amount of fat that fortifies and thickens the final sauce.

While a traditional braise can take over an hour of cook time, the Instant Pot can get this chicken adobo dinner to the table in well under an hour – the chicken cooks at high pressure for only 15 minutes, then it takes just another 10 minutes to reduce the sauce while the chicken broils until crisp.

Marvin is a blogger, cookbook author, and Certified Cicerone®. His first cookbook, The Adobo Road, was published in 2013 and his second cookbook, Pulutan!, is due out in the fall of 2018 and focuses on the bar snacks and drinking food of the Philippines.