• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Umami Days

Umami Days

Cooking in a house on a hill

  • Pick a meal
    • One Bowl Meals
    • Breakfast
    • Lunch / Dinner
      • Appetizers
      • Salads
      • Soups
      • Main Courses
      • Side Dishes
      • Sweets
    • Snacks
  • Pick your protein
    • Chicken
    • Meat
    • Seafood
    • Eggs
    • Mushrooms
    • Tofu
    • Vegetables
  • Pick your carb
    • Rice & grains
    • Noodles
    • Bread
  • Notes
    • Kitchen
    • Dining
    • Edible Garden
    • Food Tales
    • Sidebar
  • All recipes
    • By Meal
      • One Bowl Meals
      • Breakfast
      • Lunch / Dinner
        • Appetizers
        • Salads
        • Soups
        • Main Courses
        • Side Dishes
        • Sweets
      • Snacks
    • By Main Protein
      • Chicken
      • Meat
      • Seafood
      • Eggs
      • Mushrooms
      • Tofu
      • Vegetables
    • By Carb
      • Rice & grains
      • Noodles
      • Bread
  • Notes
    • Kitchen
    • Dining
    • Edible Garden
    • Food Tales
    • Sidebar
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Meat / Mexican-style pork adobada

Mexican-style pork adobada

A spicy smoky stew cooked with pork belly and Mexican-style adobo sauce made with chili flakes, chipotle, roasted garlic, cinnamon, thyme, oregano, vinegar, salt and sugar.

Mexican pork adobada in while bowl

In Mexican cuisine, adobo is the seasoning / marinade while adobada is a dish of meat marinated in adobo. If you’re a Filipino, despite the copious amount of garlic and vinegar in the seasoning, this is nothing like the adobo that your mother and grandmother cooked.

So, this is authentic Mexican adobada? Hmmm… mostly. I used Korean chili flakes which are sweeter and the heat is milder. The garlic was roasted — not traditional in Mexican adobo. If only because of those two ingredients, I prefer to call this a fusion dish with Mexican flavors. Absolutely delicious!

Mexican adobo sauce / pork belly

Make the adobo sauce before you cook your adobada. If you prefer to distribute the work, you can make the sauce a day ahead, and keep it in a covered jar in the fridge. That should give it time for the flavors to deepen. In fact, you can make the adobo sauce in bulk and freeze them in portions. That way, you don’t have to make the sauce every time you crave adobada.

Very lean meat is not recommended because the vinegar in the sauce will dry it out fast. I personally prefer pork belly but pork shoulder (also referred to as pork butt or Boston butt even though the cut is from the neck and shoulder, and even if the pig was slaughtered nowhere near Boston) or pork hock will make an equally delectable adobada.

Mexican-style pork adobada

Connie Veneracion
Roasting the garlic is not traditional, but we already had roasted garlic so that was what went into the adobo.
To roast garlic, cut half an inch off the top of a whole bulb, drizzle with olive oil and roast in the oven until soft. 
Two whole bulbs of roasted garlic went into this stew. If that sounds too much, let me assure you that it isn't. Garlic loses its sharpness during roasting and what you get is a smoky but milder garlic flavor.
Mexican-style Pork Adobada
Print Pin
Prep Time 10 mins
Cook Time 1 hr 30 mins
Total Time 1 hr 40 mins
Course Main Course
Cuisine Fusion
Servings 6 people

Ingredients
  

Adobo

  • 1 onion - peeled and chopped
  • 2 whole bulbs roasted garlic - peeled
  • 1 tablespoon Korean chili flakes
  • 1 teaspoon ground chipotle
  • ½ cup vinegar
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon dried thyme
  • ½ teaspoon dried oregano

Adobada

  • 1 kilogram pork belly
  • 2 tablespoons cooking oil
  • 2 cups chicken bone broth - (you may need more)
  • salt - to taste
  • sugar - to taste

Instructions
 

  • Place all the ingredients for the adobo in the blender or food processor and process until pasty.
  • Cut the pork belly into two-inch cubes.
  • Heat the cooking oil in a thick-bottomed pot.
  • Brown the pork cubes in the hot oil.
  • Add the adobo and cook, stirring, until the pork cubes are coated in the seasoning.
  • Pour in the broth and stir.
  • Bring to the boil, lower the heat, cover the pot and cook the pork for an hour or longer.
  • Taste the sauce twice or thrice during cooking, and add more salt or sugar, or both, as needed.
  • If the liquid dries up before the pork is tender, add more broth, no more than a quarter cup at a time.
  • The pork adobada is done when the pork is tender and the sauce has reduced to a thick paste.
Print Pin
Keyword Pork Belly, Spicy
Last updated on May 13, 2022 ♥ Meat, Lunch / Dinner, Main Courses

More to enjoy!

Air fryer lechon kawali (crispy pork belly) recipe

Air fried lechon kawali (crispy pork belly)

Pancakes stuffed with sausage meat served with egg

Longganisa (sausage) pancakes

Welsh cawl with lamb, carrot, potato and celery

Welsh cawl

Pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy

Pot roast and gravy

Salted duck egg and chorizo spaghetti

Salted duck egg and chorizo spaghetti

Bacon-stuffed pork loin with side salad

Bacon-stuffed pork loin

Sidebar

A cook’s diary

Easy tasty risotto for home cooks

My Mac’s dictionary defines risotto as “an Italian dish of rice cooked in stock with other ingredients such as meat and vegetables.” For an Asian, that sounds like throwing everything in a rice cooker until everything is done. But it’s not quite that simple.

Food bowls: Asian versus non-Asian

Food bowls are traditionally Asian. Bibimbap, donburi, gaifan, bun cha — all of which are about harmony of ingredients. Western food bowls are entirely something else.

How to cook rice

Does rice need to be rinsed? Is soaking required? How much water should the rice cook in? The answers to all these and more in this guide to cooking rice, Asian-style.

umamidays.com
  • About
  • Recipes
  • Privacy
  • Contact

Umami Days is powered by Apple, Canon, coffee & one bowl meals · Copyright © 2022 Connie Veneracion · All Rights Reserved