Recipe for Delicious Easy Kid-Friendly Crowd-Pleasing Crockpot Filipino Chicken Adobo! - by Bethany

My husband and I both served as LDS missionaries in the Philippines before we were married. We each have many fond memories of our time there: the people, the culture, the language, the scenery, the food... well... SOME of the food...

A lot of the food there took some getting used to. Going to the market looked like this:

You can imagine how it smelled! 

And walking around town, you'd see scenes like this:

They're burning the hair off a goat before roasting it on a spit over the fire.
I saw people in my areas use this same technique with a mangy dog!

We tried a lot of things in the Philippines that we never cared to eat again, but one thing we both agreed that we love is chicken adobo (adobong manok). It's meaty and salty and vinegary and oh, so good! It's one of the things we always order whenever we can find a Filipino restaurant (they're not that easy to find).

In one of those take-out containers is chicken adobo. I know that's a lot of food - I was pregnant!

The authentic version of chicken adobo is really delicious, and of course nostalgic for my husband and me, but contains bones, skin, LOTS of grease, and whole black peppercorns, which are quite unpleasant to accidentally bite into. When we get it at Filipino restaurants, my kids usually don't want any.

So I've been making variations of chicken adobo over the years until I now feel like I have a really good version of it. I make it for guests, potlucks, and everyday family dinners - it's so easy, and everyone LOVES it!

Here's what you need:

Boneless skinless chicken thighs (you can use breasts, but they dry out a lot faster)

Soy sauce

Vinegar

Garlic

Bay leaves

Black pepper

I use 4 large thighs for my little family (2 adults and 2 young meat eaters), but you can easily double or triple it, as long as your crockpot will fit it.

Use equal parts soy sauce and vinegar. I use about 1/2 cup of each. Then a couple of teaspoons (or cloves) of minced garlic, 3 bay leaves, and a few grinds of pepper.

When I get a chance to go to an Asian market, I get the authentic
 soy sauce and vinegar that we used in the Philippines.

I throw all the ingredients in the crockpot together in the morning whenever it's convenient, with the chicken still frozen! Can it get any easier?

I leave it on high all day, throw some basmati rice into the rice cooker around dinner time, then shred up the crockpot mixture with a fork (throwing out the bay leaves first). It doesn't take much to get it all broken up by that point.

Serve it over the rice, making sure not to overdo it on the sauce - it's super salty!

I serve it with tomatoes (the acid goes SO well with the salt!), or mangoes if they're cheap (more authentic). And of course a fork and a spoon, so we can eat Filipino-style:) We drink milk with it a lot of the time, also to cut the salt. (I never drank milk once on my mission, but we're really not trying for authenticity anymore here - just deliciousness!)

When I take this to potlucks, I cook 2 cups of rice in the rice cooker, spread it all over the bottom of a 9x13 glass pan, then put the chicken adobo mixture on top using a slotted spoon so as to not overdo the sauce. People are always asking for the recipe!

Try something new tomorrow, or at your next potluck, or next time you have guests over! Expose your kids to a new cuisine! Make something easy and delicious that will become a part of your menu! Your taste buds will thank you in Tagalog - Salamat po!