Pork dinuguan
September 15, 2003
Filed under Filipino food, Meat recipes
Dinuguan comes from the word dugo, or blood. It’s funny that I should be posting this recipe at this moment just after posting an entry in the Sassy Lawyer’s Journal about the economic agenda of Bush’s visit on October. Madugo.

This dish is so named bacause the sauce is made with the blood of a freshly-slaughtered pig. Traditionally cooked using a mixture of pork belly meat and pork entrails, my version should make the not-too-adventurous less squeamish. This is a very delicious dish, really. I can only ask that for those reading about dinuguan for the first time, try it first before passing judgment.
I am reminded of a British cookbook author who, during an extensive trip to Japan, became so enamoured of Japanese cuisine (yes, raw fish and raw fish eggs mostly) that he ended up devoting an entire section in his book about Japanese food and encouraging his fellow Britons to try it first before deciding that it was no good.
I should be saying the same about dinuguan.
The blood of freshly-slaughtered pig is available in local wet markets. In Antipolo where we live, the butcher gives it for free with the purchase of meat.
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Hi! I’m so glad you have this very helpful website. It gives me ideas on how to add variety to our boring everyday menus.
I never realized sinigang mix was a good way to get the sourish taste that i really like in dinuguan as our dinuguan here in the Visayas is not the sour type.
I’d just like to add my personal way of cooking dinuguan. After mashing the blood mass, i strain it to separate the liquid from the solids. Then i cook the solid separately and cut it up into pieces which i add to the cooked mixture. While it is simmering, i add the liquid blood very slowly while stirring the hot mixture. This way, i get a smooth mixture and avoid having a sandy look.
Thanks and i’m really looking forward to more recipes from you.
I discovered dinuguan when I lived in Hawaii. I used to travel all over the world before I settled down about 12 years ago, and decided early on that if I stumbled across a dish I liked, I would try to make it myself. I called it Klingon Blood Stew so my sons would try it. They are grown up now, but it’s still one of their favorite dishes. But they’ve stopped growling like Klingons when they eat it.
Bruce, you might want to try this.
Filipino community here in Bloomington INdiana US requested me to cook dinuguan for our xsmas party. I will try you dinuguan recipe this time.. with sinigang mix.
hello connie, great helpful website you have.. thank you.
i cook dinuguan while ago (followed your instruction thouroughly, it is perfect and taste great!! … but why the color of my dinuguan became really dark? it supposedly reddish brown, not dark gray. what happened? or is it normal color? (but on your dinuguan picture is reddish brown).
Could you please tell me why?
thank you po
thank you very much for your dinuguan recipe, actually now ko lang naencounter ung sinigang mix for dinuguan. but i think, it will taste great now coz pa lang ako mgtry magluto eh.:grin:
Ever since I was in the grade school, I loved dinuguan. It was a regular in our dining table until we lost my Grandmother who was the chief cook of the family.
Lately, my line of work took me to different places outside Manila. We stopped by a restaurant called Riverside restaurant for lunch. (Located 300 meters before going up Kennon Road). There we tried their version of Dinuguan. Everyone in our group agreed it was the best we have tasted in a long while.
I often check this website and tried some of your recipies and they were quite good. I will ask my wife to try the dinuguan recipe above and will let you know how I find it.
Hi connie, I hope you can respond to this one as soon as you can. I’m from australia and I got some pork blood from my local butcher for free. The pork blood they gave me was very liquidy…no mass of blood at all. Is that sort of pork blood good? what should I tell my butcher about pork blood? Kasi palagay ko parang di pang dinuguan tong blood na nakuha ko. Masyadong malinis hindi lumpy. Please help. Thanks again.
Cathy, lumps are coagulations. Blood coagulates when 1) chilled or 2) it isn’t fresh anymore. I can’t really make judgments since I have not seen the pork blood you got from your butcher but I would prefer pork blood without too many semi-solid masses.
Hi Connie. I want to try this but I dont know how to clean the blood before cooking. Can you tell me how?
Clean the blood? You don’t do anything to it except to add it to the pot.
my lola uses beef (thinly-stripped tenderloin), for her dinuguan, cooking it with kamias. re cleaning the blood, she uses only the “lumps” and mashes them with vinegar. the soup comes out light brown.
Hello, all of the recipes I’ve seen and tried out myself uses vinegar. I’d like to know why it’s not on the ingredients for your version. Thanks
Because vinegar is NOT the only souring agent that can be used for dinuguan. The juice from the mashed pulp of tamarind is best, actually.
Hi Connie tried out your recipe and my husband and myself loved it so much i found it easier to control the sourness of the dish. I’ve always found it difficult to determine when I should start stirring and always end up doing it sooner than I should. Thanks a lot for this recipe. I’l be trying out your other recipes soon. Lots of Luck.
[...] morning at an eat-all-you-can establishment. I consumed fried rice, eggs, cured meat, rice cakes, pork blood stew and stir-fried noodles, which led to the disappearance of hunger caused by my failure to ingest any [...]
patanong lang cristal kung paano mo niluluto yung buo na dugo na nasalin mo ? salamat.
I am a Filipino resident of Kuala Lumpur. For a long time I have not tried my favorite “Dinuguan” in the Philippines, and when I got across your website suddenly I found my appetite back again especially your way of cooking dinuguan. It appears that several have already good comments about it. Can’t wait of going back to Philippines to ask my daughter to cook it and follow your recipe, thanks..!
iw,,, dinuguann yakz.,,.,.
anu bang food yan,,
ndi ba nila alam na ang blood ay ang pinaka madumi sa ating body…
at lahat ng dumi sa body natin dun napupunta sa blood
yakz…
talaga
L-)
Wow , our Fil-Am community here in Rio assigned me to cook Dinuguan for our Haloween Party. I’ll try this recipe with a Bisaya twist ( the lemon grass or tanglad) . I ussually soak the lemon grass with the prk blood before cooking!
[...] have problems eating blood, since there is a Filipino dish with pork blood, offal and pork called dinuguan (otherwise known as chocolate meat which I found disgusting) that I’m used to, the hangover [...]