How to Make Tocino

Tocino is a favorite Filipino breakfast dish. This dish is made from shoulder meat, rump meat or pork tenderloin. To make tocino, simply marinate the meat with a mixture of spices, refrigerate for a few days, and fry or bake until the meat is crispy and delicious as desired. (Although “tocino” means bacon in Spanish, here we focus on the Filipino dish.)

Preparation time: 3 days (execution time: 30-60 minutes)
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Total time: 3 days (including marinating time)

Table of Contents

Ingredient

1 kg tenderloin or pork shoulder
2 tablespoons salt
½ cup vinegar
½ – 1 cup brown sugar
4 cloves of minced garlic
3 tablespoons onion powder
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon food coloring (optional)

Prepare the meat

Slice the meat into thin slices. Slice the shoulder or pork loin into slices about 0.6 cm thick. You can cut it even thinner (about 0.3 cm) if you want the slices to be really thin. Remember to remove all the bones. If you want to make slicing easier, you can put the meat in the freezer to firm up a bit before slicing.

Mix the meat marinade. You will mix the ingredients of salt, vinegar, brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic, onion powder, and food coloring. If you like, you can use beetroot powder instead of food coloring. Mix the ingredients in a bowl to make it easier to marinate the meat.

For a more tart taste, you can add ½ cup of pineapple juice to the mixture.

Toss meat in a bowl of marinade. Toss the meat so that the spice mixture coats and coats all of the meat. Press the meat down until it is completely submerged in the marinade.

Leave the marinated meat in the refrigerator for 3 days. Store meat in a zippered plastic bag or sealed plastic container and refrigerate for 3 days. This step is to allow the real meat to absorb the seasoning before grilling or frying. When you take your meat out of the fridge, don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t turn out the color you expected. The flesh may be slightly gray in color, but it will take on a nice color when cooked.

Fry or grill meat

Fry the meat on the pan. Here’s how to fry marinated meat:

Place the marinated meat in a frying pan with a little oil.
Heat oil over medium heat and fry each piece of meat for 2-3 minutes on each side. You do the same as bacon: just fry each piece until it is a nice golden brown color.

Pick up each piece of cooked meat that has just been placed on a plate and continue to fry other pieces of meat.

You can also place the meat on a paper towel if you want to absorb the oil.
If you want a more Caribbean flavor, you can cut the meat into small squares and fry until crispy, served with steamed rice like the traditional arroz blanco con tocino , literally “rice” white with tocino.”

Cooking meat. You can also grill the meat instead of frying it. Here’s how to have the perfect grilled tocino:

Heat the grill and place each piece of meat on the grill for 2-3 minutes on each side, similar to frying in a pan.
When each piece of meat is crispy and scorched, remove it from the grill and you’re done.
Let the meat “rest” for about 5 minutes before serving.

Things you need

Frying pan
Filter tool
Covered mixing bowl or any other suitable container for marinated meat.

Ingredient

Steps

Prepare the meat

Fry or grill meat

Things you need

Related Posts