What do Filipino’s eat for Breakfast

Oatmeal, pancakes and cereal, these breakfast items are considered boring and not complete meals if we are talking about Filipino Breakfast. We consider breakfast as the most important meal of the day so it should be at least nutritious and very filling hence a lot of other cultures may be shocked since we eat a lot of rice during this important time of the day. Yes, its rice most of the times, not just breakfast but mid-day and afternoon snacks as well. Today we will be listing the main categories of our breakfast items so you get a better understanding on what they are and where are they classified as.

Whether you’re looking for a very satisfying and filling breakfast or just want to know more about the Philippine cuisine then this list below is good collection of Filipino breakfast ideas for you to start with.

Leftovers

Let’s start with the reality, most Filipinos eat dinner leftovers for breakfast if they don’t bring it for their lunch (“baon“). We tend to cook more dinner so we have something easy to eat in the morning, not worrying what to cook, just wake up, reheat the food then eat. What usually works are leftovers that you can pair with rice, all you need to cook is sunny side up eggs and you are good to go. So, any dish can fall in this category, and yes, we do this a lot, as it saves heaps of time and money too.

Silogs

This term is a combination of two words “Si” for sinangag, a garlic fried rice usually served during breakfast and “Log”, for itlog or egg. Under this category falls many dishes as long as you can pair it with sinagnag and itlog, all you need to do is add a suffix of the dish you are consuming in front of the “Silog” word, like “Tapsilog” for tapa, sinagnag and itlog, tapa is a fried thinly sliced seasoned beef steaks. The popular varieties are:

• Adosilog – adobo
• Bacsilog – bacon
• Bangsilog – marinated bangus (milkfish)
• Dangsilog – daing na danggit
• Chiksilog – fried chicken
• Chosilog – chorizo
• Cornsilog – corned beef
• Hotsilog – hot dog
• Litsilog – lechon kawali
• Longsilog – longganisa
• Masilog – Ma-Ling brand Chinese luncheon meat
• Porksilog – pork chop
• Sisilog – sisig
• Spamsilog – Spam brand luncheon meat
• Tapsilog – tapa
• Tosilog or tocilog – tocino

all of which are served with garlic fried rice and egg

Rice Porridge

Another rice again on the list but this time its rice porridge which is good during cold and rainy weather. There are many types of rice porridge and it can be either sweet or savoury.

• Lugaw – the simplest of the rice porridge, no meat just salt or sugar.
• Arrozcaldo – when you add whole chicken pieces to lugaw then you got this, the chicken version with lots of ginger and toasted garlic
• Goto – this is the beef version of lugaw but instead of beef meat, it uses the beef innards such as tripe.
• Champorado – chocolate rice is what they say this is and it seems to be nearly accurate as it uses cocoa powder and milk. People love this with dried fish, it’s that sweet and salty combo

Other non-common ones under this list is Ube Champorado, Pospas de Gallina and Lelot Paro

Kakanin

Yup rice cakes, this was traditionally not just served for meryenda (tea break) but for breakfast too. Things like suman, biko and puto are popular ones. I created a whole compilation of kakanins, if you want to know more about this one just follow this link (The Endless Varieties of Kakanin)

Binatog

Ok, not all Filipino breakfast are made with rice, sometimes it can be made with corn as well but not just ordinary corn.  Binatog is made with dried mature waxy corn kernels are soaked in saltwater until the kernels puff up or by boiling in water with “Apog” or Calcium Carbonate then rinsing it in several cycles. It is then topped with grated coconut, butter (or margarine) and sugar to taste. This is not usually prepared at home but sold by walking street vendors.

Taho

If you’re in a hurry and no time to sit by the dining table and eat breakfast then this is our version of “Up and Go”, Taho, a warm tofu jelly served with caramelised liquid sugar and tapioca pearls, this was existing many years before the Bubble tea phenomenon happen. Like Binatog, this one is sold by walking street vendors too.

Tinapay

For those who love to start the day with carb and don’t like rice then Tinapay is your friend. Tinapay is a Tagalog word for “bread”, of course the most popular tinapay breakfast is a freshly baked pandesal (The quintessential bread roll of the Philippines), can be eaten on its own or with butter, processed cheese, sandwich spread, cheese wiz, Liver spread or a mixture of them. While pandesal is just the most popular, there are many other tinapay items you can get from the bakery for breakfast, I also consolidated a list of this before, if you want to know more about this one just follow this link (Top 17 Panaderia Favourites – Filipino Breads and Pastries).

Torta

Sometimes sunny side up eggs, scrambled eggs or boiled eggs just don’t make the cut for breakfast, we need more than that hence we add meats and/or vegetables to the egg before pan frying them resulting to a wonderful torta that you can enjoy with rice. With this breakfast dish, you don’t have to cook eggs and other viands separately, just combine them with eggs. There are many varieties for torta and the most popular breakfast tortas are:

• Tortang Patatas – with Potatoes
• Tortang Dulong – with small fish
• Tortang Giniling – with minced pork
• Tortang Okra – with Okra
• Tortang Talong – with eggplant
• Tortang Sardinas – with canned sardines

Dried Fish / Smoked Fish

Philippines is an archipelago, this means we have a lot of islands surrounded with water with lots of seafood, in order for our ancestors to preserve these sea creatures they have to cure it in salt and dry them in the sun resulting to a food item what we call Dried Fish or tuyo. There are also other methods for preservation and some do it by smoking resulting to tinapa. Both food items are popularly served during breakfast where it is fried and enjoyed with garlic fried rice, with its salty nature you only need a small amount of this and lots of rice, hence the popularity as it can save your wallet as a small salted fish can accompany huge loads of rice.