Instant Pot Pork Adobo

Instant Pot pork adobo is cooked in a salty, sweet & tangy sauce until the meat is fall-apart tender. This recipe is the easiest possible way to make pork adobo. Just combine the ingredients in your pressure cooker and dinner cooks itself!

this recipe

This Instant Pot pork adobo recipe has the same irresistible flavors that make Instant Pot chicken adobo so good. Vinegar, soy sauce and brown sugar flavor the meat and then turn into a sauce that's salty, sweet and tangy.

Instant Pot pork adobo is often served with rice, to soak up the flavorful sauce. You can also serve it over polenta, egg noodles or barley. I've also been known to shred the pork into corn tortillas for tacos!

Why You Should Make This Recipe

• Simple list of easy-to-find ingredients
• Hands-off cooking method
• Very little prep - just combine the ingredients in your Instant Pot
• Perfect balance of salty, sweet and sour flavors
• Delicious leftovers!

Ingredients

Pork shoulder: Ask the butcher to cut the pork shoulder roast into 2-inch pieces, so you don't have to do it at home, or look for pre-cut pork stew meat. Just like cider-braised pork or Instant Pot pork butt, you can use pork butt instead of pork shoulder.

Both the pork butt and pork shoulder come from the same part of the pig (the upper and lower shoulder). Both are tough and fatty and are best cooked at a low temperature for a long time, or in a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers do an amazing job of tenderizing meat.

For this recipe, don't include too much of the hard, white fat that often covers a large piece of pork shoulder or butt. It will just make the dish too oily. (But don't throw that fat away! You can render pork fat and use it for cooking)

Soy sauce:Traditional Filipino adobo uses Filipino soy sauce. For this recipe, I use the reduced sodium soy sauce that can be bought in any grocery store. Reduced sodium soy sauce is essential so that the meat isn't too salty.

Vinegar: Traditional Filipino adobo often uses Filipino cane sugar vinegar. For this recipe, you can use apple cider vinegar or white vinegar.

Brown sugar: Sometimes adobo recipes add sugar, sometimes they don't. I like adding just 2 teaspoons of brown sugar to balance the salty and vinegary flavors. You could use white sugar instead, if necessary.

Black pepper, scallions, garlic and bay leaf: Yes, yes, yes and yes!

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Saute the green onion and smashed garlic cloves for a minute or two.
2. Add reduced sodium soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, black pepper and a bay leaf.

3. Add 2-inch pieces of pork shoulder or pork butt. Mix well to coat the pork.
4. Cook on high pressure for 30 minutes, with a natural release

5. Remove the pork. Skim the fat off the sauce before serving.

*see recipe card below for exact ingredient amounts

What is Adobo?

"Adobo" comes from the Spanish word adobar, which means "marinade" or "sauce" or "seasoning." Because the word means many things, "adobo" can mean different things in different cuisines.

This recipe is adapted from traditional Filipino adobo. While the cooking method and ingredients for Filipino adobo is indigenous to the Philippines, the dish wasn't called adobo until the Spanish empire colonized the Philippines in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Most often, you'll find recipes for Filipino pork adobo or chicken adobo. Adobo recipes can vary greatly from cook to cook. But most marinate meat in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves and black pepper. I also add a pinch of brown sugar to balance the salty and sour flavors with a hint of sweetness.

This recipe also takes advantage of a pressure cooker to make an adobo recipe that is easy, fairly fast and guarantees tender meat.

More Filipino Recipes

Affiliate Disclosure: Cookbook titles in this section are Bookshop.org affiliate links. Your cost for purchasing the book is the same, but a small portion of your purchase will come back to me and help offset the costs of running a food blog. When ordering from Bookshop.org you’ll also be supporting independent bookstores.

There's so much to explore! A good place to start is with Chef Roline Casper's cookbook, The Easy Filipino Cookbook. It's filled with simple, authentic recipes. I Am a Filipino: And This is How We Cook is an award-winning cookbook by Chef Nicole Ponseca that's one of my favorites.

FAQ About Instant Pot Pork Adobo

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