Chicken Adobo
Prep: 10 Minutes | Cook: 90 Minutes | Resting Time: 10 Minutes | Total: 110 Minutes / 1 Hour 50 Minutes
Makes 8 Servings
Ingredients
6 Bone-In Chicken Thighs (~3 lbs)
Salt, enough to coat chicken
3 T Neutral Oil
Adobo Sauce
100 mL Vinegar
100 mL Water
75 mL Soy Sauce
5 T Brown Sugar
1 t Black Peppercorns
2 Bayleaf
Recipe Summary
Mise en place
Salt chicken
Sear chicken
Braise chicken in adobo sauce
Reduce sauce (optional)
Serve hot
Recipe
Pat chicken thighs dry with a paper towel and generously salt both sides. Heat a large saute pan with a neutral oil, such as canola oil. There should be enough to cover the entire surface. Once oil is heated place chicken skin side down for around 10 minutes to crisp skin. Flip chicken and cook for another 5 minutes.
While the chicken is cooking, mix vinegar, water, soy sauce, and brown sugar in a bowl until the sugar is fully dissolved. Set aside.
Transfer chicken to a large pot and place in a layer across the bottom of the pot. Pour adobo liquid into the pot with the chicken and set to low heat. Cover for 20 minutes to allow chicken to simmer and become extremely tender. Periodically check the tenderness of the chicken with a fork. The chicken should fall off the bone with gentle pressure applied. Once it has reached that point remove the lid and remove all chicken from the cooking liquid, transferring to a container and covering with foil.
(Optional, but recommended) Continue to heat the sauce at a low simmer to reduce it. The amount of reduction done in this step is a personal choice - you can reduce the sauce to a jammy liquid, or skip this step and eat it as is. Reducing the sauce will create more concentrated flavors, however it will take more time.
Serve chicken hot on a plate with white rice and additional sauce.
Tips and Notes
There are countless variations on chicken adobo, but the majority of them fall under the soy or no soy variations. At its simplest, adobo is made from vinegar and sugar with some additional aromatics (peppercorns and bayleaf), so the soy is actually not the original version. I personally prefer the version with soy because it has more umami flavor.
For a gluten free version of the recipe use a gluten free soy sauce, tamari, or omit it completely.
Add sugar to match your taste preferences. Some people like a sweeter adobo. I suggest adding 1/2 T of sugar at a time until it meets your taste.
Heating vinegar greatly reduces its acidic bite and it becomes more mellow with a developed flavor. Simmering the chicken in vinegar imparts that flavor to the chicken, but also creates a slightly sour and savory sauce that no longer has the mouth puckering qualities of the original vinegar.
White vinegar is the most readily available vinegar (also the cheapest) and works well with adobo. Alternatively you can mix equal parts white vinegar and any other vinegar (such as apple cider vinegar) for some additional flavor notes.