Filipino Adobo on Mexican Tostadas?! Instant Pot Fusion Recipe That Works

For Filipinos, every dish is eaten with rice — especially adobo. I am one of those people who can’t live without rice. I will happily eat rice every day for the rest of my life. However, realizing that my husband grew up with very different flavors and kinds of food, I’ve always wondered how our palates could meet in the middle without either of us having to sacrifice our favorite tastes. He isn’t Mexican, but he loves Mexican food — and who wouldn’t? Mexican food is so good, so colorful, and so flavorful. I started loving it too. Then I thought, Why not use the flavors I grew up with to recreate the dishes my husband really loves? And so… In this video, I experimented with a small batch of beef cooked in Filipino adobo style using the Instant Pot, but served with tostadas. The result was unbelievably 🔥 ⬇️ FULL RECIPE BELOW ⬇️ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🥩 INSTANT POT FILIPINO BEEF ADOBO (Small Batch — 200–250g) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ INGREDIENTS: • 200–250g beef chuck or stew meat (cut into 1–1.5 inch chunks) • 2–3 Tbsp soy sauce (Silver Swan or Datu Puti preferred) • 1–2 Tbsp vinegar (white, cane, or apple cider) • 1/2 cup water or beef broth - If using Instapot or pressure cooker • 4–6 garlic cloves, minced or smashed • ¼ medium onion, sliced • 1–2 bay leaves • ½–1 tsp whole black peppercorns • 1 tsp brown sugar (optional) • Salt to taste • Optional: chili flakes, fish sauce, or ginger slice Adjust the measurements depending on how you like your Adobo. INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Add all ingredients — soy sauce, vinegar, water/broth, sugar, bay leaves, peppercorns. Stir. (I didn't use bay leaves in mine but you may add some) 2. Pressure cook — High Pressure 30-40 mins. Natural release 10 mins, then quick release. 3. Finish — Remove beef and shred. Reduce sauce 5–8 mins on Sauté until thickened. Toss beef back in sauce. Simple Cabbage Slaw (Adobo Tostada Style) INGREDIENTS: • 1½ cups green cabbage, thinly shredded • ¼ cup purple cabbage, shredded (optional — adds color) • 1 small carrot, julienned or grated • 2 Tbsp mayo or crema (OPTIONAL) • 1 Tbsp white vinegar or calamansi/lime juice • ½ tsp sugar • Salt and pepper to taste • Optional: pinch of chili flakes for a little heat INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Combine shredded cabbage and carrot in a bowl. 2. In a small bowl, mix mayo, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. 3. Pour dressing over cabbage and toss well to coat. 4. Taste and adjust — more vinegar for tang, more sugar for balance. 5. Let it sit for 10–15 mins before serving so it softens slightly. Fresh Pico de Gallo INGREDIENTS: • 2 medium roma tomatoes, diced small • ¼ medium white onion, finely diced • 1 small jalapeño, seeded and minced (adjust to heat preference) • 2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped • Juice of 1 lime • Salt to taste INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Dice tomatoes and place in a bowl. If watery, drain excess liquid first. 2. Add onion, jalapeño, and cilantro. 3. Squeeze lime juice over everything. 4. Season with salt, toss gently to combine. 5. Let it rest 10–15 mins before serving so flavors meld together. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌮 TOSTADA ASSEMBLY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Crispy corn tostada shells • Warm refried beans (base layer) • Saucy shredded adobo beef • Shredded lettuce or cabbage • Diced tomato and onion • Crumbled queso fresco or cotija • Crema or sour cream drizzle • Pickled onions or atchara • Cilantro and lime ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📝 POLENG'S KITCHEN NOTES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✔️ Reduce the sauce well or strain the beef so tostada shells stay crispy ✔️ For crispy edges you can pan-fry shredded beef after shredding ✔️ Leftovers taste even better the next day stored in the sauce ✔️ Adjust soy/vinegar/garlic ratio to your taste next time. ✔️ I used an Instapot however this may be cooked on a stove, it may just take longer hour for the beef to tenderize. ✔️ Red pickled onions are very easy to make at home. Also it's cheaper. ✔️ Most ingredients are available in Publix (if you are in the US) and can be used for other Mexican dish. I think it's worth having them if you love Mexican food. Next time I will be working on Chicken Breast Adobo for Tacos or Nachos. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ If you tried this, tag me — I'd love to see your version! 🙌 Subscribe for more fusion food experiments! 👇