Delicious and Healthy Filipino Breakfast Recipes to Kickstart Your Day

Start your day right with easy, flavorful Filipino dishes that are both satisfying and nutritious. Filipino breakfast is known for its comforting and hearty flavors, often combining savory, sweet, and umami elements. From sweet cured meats like tocino to soft pandesal rolls, Filipino cuisine offers a variety of options. Let's explore some popular and healthy Filipino breakfast recipes that you can easily prepare at home.

Tosilog: A Classic Filipino Breakfast

Tosilog (sometimes spelled Tocilog) is a portmanteau of Tocino (sweet cured pork), Sinangag (garlic fried rice), and Itlog (fried egg). It's a mouthwatering trio that hits every craving with garlicky rice, savory-sweet pork, and a rich runny-yolked egg that ties it all together. This classic Tocilog recipe is definitely a favorite, but you can build variations on the same foundation of garlic fried rice + egg. The only thing that changes is the protein, which transforms the dish into something entirely new. Hotsilog is one such example.

Tocino: Sweet Cured Pork

Made from pork cured with salt, sugar, garlic, and spices, the marinade caramelizes as it cooks, creating a glorious glaze. You might remember raving about how delicious tocino is as a breakfast meat, but pairing it with garlic rice and eggs takes it to a whole new level. The 160 grams Tocino takes the most time, so it can be put in a cold non-stick pan and cooked over medium heat until any liquid boiled off the marinade starts to caramelize around the meat.

Tips for Cooking Tocino:

• Start from a Cold Pan: Cooking tocino starting in a cold skillet allows the fat to render slowly while caramelizing the surface of the cured pork.
• The problem with most store-bought versions is they're loaded with food coloring and preservatives.

Sinangag: Garlic Fried Rice

Made with leftover rice fried in browned garlic, this classic side is the perfect companion to salty-sweet tocino. It might sound simple, but there are a few tricks to bring out the most flavor in your garlic rice. Leftover rice, specifically day-old rice, is ideal for fried rice as it has dried out slightly, preventing it from becoming gummy when fried. Start the 1 batch Sinangag as soon as you have the Tocino going.

Recipe for Sinangag:

Sinangag is a staple dish of Filipino cuisine, in particular Filipino breakfast. In fact, there is an entire category of Filipino breakfasts called silog, a shortened version of sinangag at itlog (garlic fried rice and egg), which consist of garlic fried rice, a fried egg, and an ulam (main course), typically a meat like longaniza or tocino.

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Ingredients:

• 2 cups day-old rice
• 2 tbsp oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Add chilled day‑old rice and toss to coat every grain.
2. In a large pan, heat the oil and sauté the minced garlic on low heat, until aromatic.
3. Add the rice to the pan and stir to distribute the garlic and the oil. Make sure to break up any clumps in the rice.
4. Cook on medium heat until the rice is heated through.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. For extra crunch, fry half of the garlic on high heat until crispy.

Itlog: Fried Egg

While the Tagalog word itlog simply means "egg," Tosilog is typically served with the egg cooked sunny-side up. That said, it can also be made with poached eggs, which are pretty amazing. If you're not into runny eggs, scrambled eggs will work well too. No matter which style you choose, it is recommended to cook the egg on the soft side. If you have enough pans, you can start the 4 eggs when the Sinangag is almost done. If you don't, you can make them in the same pan as the garlic rice, after it's done and you've plated it.

Plating and Enjoying Tosilog

Plate the tocino, sinangag, and eggs. Enjoy this classic Filipino breakfast that offers a delightful combination of flavors and textures.

Vegetarian Filipino Breakfast

One of my favorite nostalgic dishes is this vegetarian Filipino breakfast, which consists of sinangag (garlic fried rice), tortang talong (an eggplant omelette), a tomato and onion salad, and a fried egg.

Tortang Talong: Eggplant Omelette

The silky whisked eggs add structure and richness to the creamy charred eggplant in this traditional around-the-clock Filipino dish. For all its flavor, the techniques used are simple, making this one of my go-to weeknight meals.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 Chinese or Japanese eggplant
• 2 tbsp oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Char the eggplant. This can be done either by broiling the eggplant on high heat for 15-20 minutes, or by laying it directly on the burner of a gas stove and using tongs to turn it regularly so that it chars on all sides.
2. Set the eggplant aside to cool slightly (this will make it easier to peel).
3. Beat the eggs, adding in salt and pepper to taste.
4. Once the eggplant has cooled, peel it, set aside the skins, and flatten the eggplant using a fork.
5. Dunk the eggplant in the egg mixture, letting it soak thoroughly before transferring the battered eggplant to a large frying pan.

Tomato and Onion Salad

I honestly don’t know what this is called in Tagalog and apparently neither does the internet. Part of the problem may be that although the core ingredients stay the same (onion, tomato, and citrus), there are many variations of the dish.

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Ingredients:

• 2 fresh tomatoes, diced
• ½ onion, diced (red is preferred, but white works as well)
• Calamansi to taste (lemon substitutes in a pinch)
• Soy sauce to taste

Instructions:

1. Combine the tomatoes and the onions.
2. Dress with calamansi and soy sauce to your taste- a 2:1 ratio of soy sauce to calamansi is my preferred ratio. Seriously.

Additional Tips for Filipino Breakfast Dishes

• Day‑old rice = better fried rice: Using day-old rice ensures that the fried rice doesn't become gummy.
• Seasoned oil first: Infusing the oil with garlic or other aromatics before adding the rice enhances the flavor of the dish.
• Thin‑cut beef for tapa: Thinly sliced beef is ideal for making tapa, a dried or cured beef dish.
• Steam‑burst for reheat: Using a steam burst when reheating rice or pandesal helps to retain moisture and freshness.
• Proof pandesal warm, not hot: Proofing pandesal in a warm environment allows the dough to rise properly without overheating.

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