Ingredients, cooking terms, and food-culture words you'll run into across our recipes — with pronunciations, and links to every dish that uses them. New to Filipino cooking? Start here.
A salty, fermented condiment made from tiny shrimp or small fish, used as a savory cooking ingredient rather than a table sauce.
Filipino fish sauce — a thin, amber, intensely savory liquid made from fermented fish, used to season soups, noodles, and dipping sauces.
Filipino soy sauce — thinner and saltier than most Chinese or Japanese varieties, used both as a cooking ingredient and a table condiment.
Filipino vinegar, most often made from sugar cane, coconut, or nipa palm sap, with a sharper, funkier tang than plain white vinegar.
A garlic-and-chili spiked vinegar dipping sauce built on suka — the classic table-side condiment for fried and grilled Filipino pork dishes like lechon kawali and chicharon.
A small, round Philippine citrus fruit — tart like lime, with a floral sweetness — squeezed over food, into drinks, and into dipping sauces.
Small reddish seeds from the achiote tree, used to give Filipino dishes their signature orange-red color without adding much flavor of their own.
Coconut milk — pressed from grated mature coconut meat, used to add richness to both savory stews and sweet desserts.
Purple yam — a starchy tuber with a vividly purple color and a mild, slightly nutty, vanilla-like flavor, central to Filipino desserts.
A long, fragrant tropical leaf used to flavor and scent both sweet and savory Filipino dishes, often described as grassy, vanilla-like, and slightly floral.
Toasted coconut curds — the browned solids left behind after simmering coconut milk until the oil separates out, used as a crunchy, nutty topping.
Filipino sausage, typically pork, in styles ranging from garlicky and savory to sweet and slightly cured, and often noticeably red in color.
Tamarind — a tangy, tart fruit pod used as the primary souring agent in sinigang and other sour Filipino soups.
Thin, dried noodles made from rice flour, used as the base for several pancit dishes, most notably Pancit Bihon.
An umbrella term for Filipino rice cakes and rice-based sweets — usually steamed or baked, often sold from trays at markets and street stalls.
An afternoon (or sometimes mid-morning) snack meal in Filipino culture — often a light savory or sweet dish eaten between lunch and dinner.
Filipino bar food — savory snacks and small plates meant to be eaten alongside drinks, usually beer, during a casual gathering.
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