Filipino Christmas Recipes or Noche Buena Recipes (2024)

Last Updated on January 24, 2017 by Ed Joven

Filipino Christmas Recipes

Christmas in the Philippines is the world’s longest Christmas season, with Christmas carols heard as early as September and lasting until Epiphany, the feast of the Black Nazarene on January 9 or the Feast of the Santo Niño de Cebú on the third Sunday of January. The official observance is from 16 December with the beginning of the Simbang Gabi to Epiphany.

Christmas Eve (“Bisperas ng Pasko”) on 24 December is celebrated with the Midnight Mass, and the traditional Noche Buena feast. Family members dine together at around midnight on traditional yuletide fare, which includes: queso de bola (Spanish: “ball of cheese”), which is edam cheese) sealed with red wax; tsokoláte, pasta, fruit salad, pan de sall, relleno and hamón (Christmas ham).

Here are theFilipino Christmas Recipes usually served during the Filipino Noche Buena:

For Filipino Christmas Dessert Recipes click here>>

For Filipino Christmas Salad Recipes click here >>

Pasta Christmas Recipes:

• Luncheon Meat Macaroni Salad Recipe is a flavorful macaroni salad, plus with the addition of Victorias Luncheon Meat adds a delicious meaty taste, I can say now that this is one of my salad favorites!
• Filipino Lasagna Recipe is baked with layered wide-flat pasta, meat sauce and creamy white sauce which makes the lasagna rich and flavorful in every bite.
• Filipino Baked Macaroni and Cheese Recipeis a perfect side dish to your Christmas ham!
• Spaghetti Carbonara FilipinoRecipe version combines cream, eggs, cheese and bacon.
• Filipino Chicken Macaroni Salad Recipe is made with macaroni pasta, hard-cooked eggs, chopped fruits and vegetables, and a seasoned mayonnaise dressing. This is a salad that everyone seems to love.
• Filipino Style Spaghetti Recipe is one of the most loved foods in Filipino cuisine, it is always present in every special occasions like birthday and fiesta. Unlike the popular Italian spaghetti, Filipino spaghetti runs on the sweet side because of Banana Ketchup.

Chicken Christmas Recipes:

• Max’s style Fried Chicken Recipe has a moist, tender and crisp skin that will really make you eat more.
• Rellenong Manok or Stuffed deboned chicken is still an all-time Filipino favorite. Probably the best way to display one’s culinary skills is by being able to debone a chicken without breaking its skin.
• Hinalang na Manok or Chicken Hinalang Recipe believed to originate from Bohol province, this super spicy dish is a combination of native chicken cooked in coconut milk with plenty of chili (bird’s eye pepper), mixed with onion, ginger and peppercorns (pamintang bilog).
• Tinolang Manok is a simple soup with chicken, ginger, lemongrass, chili leaves or malunggay and green papaya, it is a favorite home style dish in the Philippines.
• Paksiw na Lechon Manok, we Filipinos have the popular Lechon Paksiw for pork, here’s the version for the chicken lechon paksiw.

• Chicken Afritada is so popular and loved by many Filipinos, that’s why most Karinderias in the Philippines sell this dish.

• Sinigang na Manok or Sinampalukang Manok Recipe is one of the oldest traditional recipes in the Philippines. It is a flavorful soup, which had a sour broth. It is made of Chicken cooked with tamarind and vegetables.

• Chicken Curry Recipe is an easy to follow chicken recipe you can serve for lunch or dinner daily.

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• Grilled Chicken Leg with Asparagus and Peas Recipe, Chicken legs are the perfect meat for grilling. The heat of the grill sears the outside, keeping the meat moist and tender on the inside.

• Chicken Lumpia Recipe is a very simple dish filled with chicken, onions, a little of curry powder and brown sugar and with grated cheese. You’ll love chicken version of Lumpia.

Seafood Christmas Recipes:

• Ginataang Alimango Recipe – it is a savory dish which translates to “crabs cooked in coconut milk”. Cooking this is very easy and once you tried this creamy Ginataang Alimango, you probably won’t eat the plain steamed crab the same way again.
• Baked Bangus ( Milkfish ) Recipe is an easy to prepare, convenient to cook and nutritious Pinoy dish. It’s so easy all you have to do is slice all the ingredients, place it on top of the Bangus then bake it.
• Rellenong bangus or relyenong bangus (Stuffed Milkfish) is a very special Filipino dish because of the amount of work involved in cooking.
• Grilled Shrimp and Lemon Kebabs with tropical Fruit Salsa. This easy to cook and healthy meal is perfectly seasoned with light lemon juice and garlic, grilled to perfection with Mango and Cucumber Salsa as sidings.

• Shrimp Gambas Recipe ( Spicy ), is popular Filipino shrimp dish. Most of the Restaurant in the Philippines serve this on their menu as an appetizer or a main dish.

• Sweet and Sour Tilapia Recipe – Tilapia is a popular cooking fish in the Philippines. This Filipino Sweet and Sour Tilapia dish is a bit different than the traditional Chinese sweet and sour fish dish.

• Squid Estofado Recipe, Estofado is a variation of the usual chicken or pork, in this recipe we used Squid to prepare this traditional Filipino dish.
• Camaron Rebosado Recipe is a delicious and a simple way to cook shrimp. It is the Philippine version of Japanese tempura except tempura has a light batter and served with soy sauce.
• Bistek na Tanigue with Cream Recipe is comprised of thinly sliced beef cooked in soy sauce and calamansi juice and garnished with fresh onion rings.

Vegetable Christmas Recipes:

• Chop suey is a popular Filipino-Chinese vegetable dish primarily made up of mixed vegetable with meat like chicken, beef, shrimp or pork, added for extra flavor.
• Rellenong Talong can be translated as “Stuffed Eggplant Omelette” or popularly knows as Tortang Talong (Eggplant Omellete).
• Cheesy Bake Broccoli Recipe is a mouth-watering comfort food, sprinkled with bacon on top and creamy cheese sauce, which is bursting with enticing flavors and nutrition and baked to perfection.
• Chinese Beef Broccoli Recipe is a heart-healthy and delicious stir fry beef and broccoli recipe, that is quick and easy to prepare and adds protein from the beef strips with authentic Chinese cuisine taste.
• Broccoli Tempura Recipe is one of the many variations in tempura recipes – a popular Japanese dish cooked in a batter and then deep fried. This delish appetizer is excellently paired with dipping sauce even for those who do not like veggies a lot; they will certainly love this Broccoli Tempura Recipe.

Pork Christmas Recipes:

• Filipino style Cheesy Bacon Bombs Recipe is a great beer match food or serve as an appetizer.
• Humba Recipe is a sugar braised pork belly, another popular Filipino food originated somewhere in the Visayas and Mindanao regions.
• Embutido is a Filipino style meatloaf recipe. It is one of the most favorite Filipino dish. Embutido can be served as cold cuts; lightly pan a sliced pieces or fried the whole then sliced. It is also best that you dip a slice of embutido with your favorite food sauce.

• Sinugbang Baboy na Kinilaw Recipe, No need for dipping sauce for this grilled dish because of the sauce already tossed in to it.

• Bagnet is deep fried pork’s meat, the Ilocano version of Lechon Kawali, also known as Ilocano Chicharon Baboy. Just be careful when cooking or deep frying this dish, expect a lot of hot oil splashing.
• Pata Tim Recipe is a popular braised pork leg dish similar to paksiw na pata with out the vinegar.
• Crispy Pata dish is deep fried pork legs ( Pata means Pork Feet in spanish ), a very delicious meal and although it is very high in cholesterol but with the crispy skin and soft meat plus the dipping sauce ( soy sauce, combined with vinegar and diced garlic ) makes it irresistible and keeps customers coming back for more.
• Filipino Puchero or Pochero is a delicious stew made from chicken, pork or beef. Here’s how to prepare Puchero or Pochero the Filipino way.
• Bopis Recipe is a uniquely Filipino dish traditionally prepared from assorted pig parts. These assorted parts are usually the heart, kidneys, lungs, and intestines.
• Siomai Recipe is a dimsum of Chinese origin which is loved by many Filipinos. One can order different kinds of siomai but the base is always pork. The ground meat should have some fat otherwise the cooked siomai will be too tough.
• Pork Dinuguan (also called dinardaraan in Ilocano, or pork blood stew in English) is a Filipino savory stew of blood and meat simmered in a rich, spicy gravy of pig blood, garlic, chili and vinegar.
• Igado Recipe is an authentic Filipino Ilocano dish. Igado is like Menudo, ilocano style. Different barrios cook their Igado in many ways.
• Pinoy Style Barbecued Spareribs Recipe, Tender and juicy slabs of pork spareribs coated in sweet barbecue sauce grilled to perfection.

Lumpia Christmas Recipes:

• Lumpiang Sariwa or Lumpia Sariwa, literally means ‘fresh springroll‘, consist of shredded fresh vegetables minced ubod ( a palm tree trunk), flaked chicken, crushed peanuts, and turnips as an extender in a double wrapping of lettuce leaf and a yellowish egg crepe.
• Lumpia Shanghai Recipe is a favorite finger food by Filipinos, influenced by the Chinese and originally called lunpia; it is a type of egg roll filled with meat. This is a very popular dish at most celebrations like weddings, birthdays, family reunions, and New Year’s Eve.
• Lumpiang Bangus Recipe is basically prepared by boiling the fish. Most cooks classify this dish as easy to prepare.Lumpiang Bangus is a nutritious substitute to Lumpiang Shanghai.
• Lumpiang Ubod Recipe is one of the popular varieties of the Filipino fresh eggrolls, made with heart of the palm called ubod as its main filling.
• Lumpiang Togue Recipe is often served as an appetizer or a side dish which is best paired with a dip of spicy vinegar seasoned with onions and whole peppercorn or locally known as “paminta”.
• Filipino Cheese Sticks Recipe is an easy to prepare Pinoy dish, it is a deep-fried snack composed of sliced cheese wrapped in spring roll wrapper or lumpia wrapper.
• Pimiento Cheese Sticks Recipe is a popular snack or merienda here in the Philippines. This cheese sticks are deep fried with pimiento, it often serves as an appetizer paired with an assortment of dipping sauces like guacamole dip or spicy mayo.

Rice Christmas Recipes:

• Puto Bumbong Recipe is traditionally made from a special variety of heirloom sticky or glutinous rice called Pirurutong which has a distinctly purple color, soaked in salted water and dried overnight and then poured into bumbong or bamboo tubes and then steamed until done or steam rises out of the bamboo tubes.
• Arroz Valenciana Recipe, is a typical Latin American dish their version is called Arroz a la Valenciana for Spain and Arroz Valenciana in Portugal the Pinoy version is called Arroz Valenciana.
• Bringhe Recipe is made with glutinous rice then cooked with a combination of coconut milk, must be fresh for a more delicious result and “luyang dilaw” also known as turmeric powder which causes the dish to be yellow in color and gives a distinct appetizing flavor; it is then covered with banana leaves until it is cooked.
• Paella Valenciana Recipe is a Filipino adaptation of the famous Valencian dish made with rice, vegetables, saffron, chicken and seafood that makes a satisfying one-pot meal.
• Filipino Paella Recipe, Paella is an internationally known Spanish rice dish originating in the Valencian region. Spaniards view it as one of their country’s national dishes.

Pancit Christmas Recipes:

• Pancit Malabon is a type of pancit that originated in Malabon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

• Pansit Bam-i or Bam-e is a noodle dish originated in Cebu made with a combination of canton (egg noodles) and sotanghon (vermicelli or bean thread noodles), and a number of vegetables and spices, which gives it an interesting texture and distinct taste.

• Pancit Sotanghon Guisado Recipe, Sotanghon is served only on special occasions. This mungbean noodle (Pancit Sotanghon) is more expensive than other noodles.

• Pancit Canton Recipe is a mixture of egg noodle dish with chicken, vegetables, shrimp and Chinese sausage. In every Filipino occasion, particularly on Birthdays, Pancit is always on the menu since it is known to represent for good health and long life.
• Pancit Habhab Recipe is not like any other pancit recipe that we all know, since it is prepared and served in a different way. Though, it has some ingredients like the usual pancit recipe such as, shrimp, pork, carrots, pechay and sayote, Pancit Habhab uses miki Lucban it is a type of dried noodles but not the same as the pancit canton.
• Pancit Palabok Recipe is great for snacks and will surely give your tummy a satisfying fullness. This is because the delightful snack is packed with calories and other flavorful ingredients.
• Pancit Molo Recipe is an adaptation of wonton soup, is a specialty of the town of Molo in Iloilo a well-know district in the province. Unlike other pancit, pancit molo is not dry but soupy and it does not make use of long, thin noodles but instead wonton wrappers made from rice flour.

Beef Christmas Recipes:

• Beef Kare-kare Recipe is made from peanut sauce with a variety of vegetables, stewed oxtail, beef, and occasionally offal or tripe.

• Beef Mechado Recipe is an appetizing tomato based, beef stew dish similar to other Filipino cuisine like the Beef Caldereta, Afritada, Menudo and Estofado because of the tomato sauce which is the common ingredient used in this recipe.

• Kaldereta Kambing Recipe is one of the meat dishes every Filipino has come to love. It is a favorite pulutan and is a requisite during fiestas. You can always find it in the menus of authentic Filipino restaurant or even in “turo-turo” type restaurant.
• Lengua Estofado Recipe – Lengua Estofado or sometimes called Estofada is made from ox tongue, cooked in tomato sauce, green olives, and mushrooms then often served with fried potatoes.

• Kansi is an Ilonggo recipe that is sort of like a cross between Bulalo (beef bone marrow and vegetables soup) and Sinigang (sour pork soup).

• Beef Caldereta Recipe, is rich tomato-based stew traditionally cooked with goat meat.

• Beef Adobo with Creamy Sauce Recipe, Tender beef chunks stewed in vinegar made tastier with NESTLE All Purpose Cream.

• Bulalo Steak Recipe, A different yet interesting way of preparing and serving beef shanks–slowly tenderized, marinated and seared then served sizzling on a hot plate.