Sous Vide Pork Adobo

Sous vide pork adobo—a classic, flavorful, and traditional Filipino national dish made with a modern cooking method to guarantee the perfect result. 

I have been using my sous vide machine a lot because I no longer have the luxury of time. I can’t stick around in the kitchen for longer than ten minutes before my toddler comes to demand my attention. It’s also because I know my food will consistently turn out exactly the way I want it. With sous vide, a lot of times, ten minutes is all I need to get my food ready for the water bath.

Recently, I have discovered that Asian food is a very suitable cuisine for sous vide cooking, especially meat. A good old stew, BBQ, or any type of braised meat typically requires hours of cooking on the stove, such as the famous Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly. When you cook it sous vide in the same adobo sauce-marinade,  not only is the savory flavor amplified, but it saves you hours of time in the kitchen, and you never have to worry about overcooking it. It’s kind of game-changing. 

For these reasons, I took the classic Filipino pork adobo recipe and experimented with it using my sous vide. I am not going to say that I am surprised by how well it turned out because I expected the exact outcome. What I can tell you is that with a couple of simple tweaks to the original recipe, the sous vide pork adobo is just as good as the stove-top version. If not better. You can do it with chicken breast for chicken adobo as well. 

Why Sous Vide Filipino Pork Adobo?

Personally, every single factor listed below by itself is already reason enough for me to cook pork adobo sous vide. When they’re all combined, it just becomes a no-brainer. When you cook pork adobo sous vide…

• The meat is guaranteed, without fail, to be perfectly tender.
• The authentic flavor is amplified with hours of marinating and cooking at the same time.
• It only takes 15 minutes of hands-on time.
• You don’t have to keep an eye on it during cooking. Once it’s under the water, you can totally forget about it and go on with your day. 
• You can’t overcook it. No waste, no guilt, only amazing outcome.
• You can expect the same consistent result every.single.time.

What do you say? Are you in? I hope so. Before I show you exactly how to sous vide pork adobo, let’s take a look at the cooking temperature and cooking time, so you can choose what fits you the best. 

Sous Vide Pork Adobo Time and Temperature

As I mentioned in All Things Pork Adobo, you can use different cuts to make this classic Filipino dish. The best cut is pork belly. A leaner and cheaper cut like pork shoulder also works. 

When using pork belly:

Cooking Temperature	Texture/Doneness	Cooking Time
176°F	Succulent and fall-off-the-bone	7 hours
154°F	Firm and steak-like but still tender	24 hours

When using pork shoulder:

Cooking Temperature	Texture/Doneness	Cooking Time
176°F	Tender and braise-like	8 hours
140°F	Firm and steak-like but still tender	8 hours

How to Sous Vide Pork Belly Adobo Step by Step

Once you choose your cut of pork and the texture you would like to achieve, it’s time to get cooking. 

Step 1: Set up your sous vide and preheat water to 176°F or the temperature you would like to cook according to the charts above. 

Step 2: Cut pork into bite-sized pieces (1 ½ – 2-inch pieces); dice an onion and peel the garlic cloves. 

Step 3: In a hot skillet, add a little oil and sear the pork on all sides until lightly browned and crispy, about 45 seconds to 1 minute each side. Work in batches and don’t overcrowd the skillet. 

Step 4: Drain and transfer the seared pork into a sous vide bag or heavy-duty Ziploc freezer bag. (I placed the pork onto a plate first for the photo in order to show you what it looks like after searing.) 

Step 5: In the same skillet, using the pork grease or remaining oil (if there’s too much pork fat in the skillet, pour it out and leave about 1 tablespoon of the grease in the skillet), sauté the onions and garlic over medium-high heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. 

Step 6: Add the onions and garlic into the sous vide bag, along with soy sauce, vinegar, oyster sauce, whole black peppercorns, and bay leaves. 

Step 7: Using the water displacement method, slowly lower the pork bag into the water bath, pushing as much as air out of the bag, then clip the top onto the edge of your cooking vessel. Set the timer. (No vacuum sealer? Not to worry, because this is one of the sous vide recipes that I don’t recommend vacuum-sealing due to the marinade.)

Step 8: Once the timer goes off, simply pour everything out of the bag into a serving bowl. What are you waiting for? Dig in before it gets cold.

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