Small, whole fish (often herring or sardine) that's been salted and sun-dried, then pan-fried until crisp before eating. Intensely salty by design — that's the entire point.
Tuyo is preserved the old way: heavily salted and dried in the sun until the moisture is mostly gone, which concentrates the flavor and lets it keep for weeks without refrigeration. Before frying, most cooks soak it briefly in water to soften and reduce some of the saltiness, though plenty of households skip that step and fry it straight from the package.
It's most famous as the salty counterpart to something sweet — a bowl of champorado eaten alongside fried tuyo is one of the most iconic Filipino breakfast pairings, the same sweet-and-salty logic behind pancakes and bacon.
Recipes on Pancit.com that call for tuyo.
