Last Updated on October 31, 2017

The Top 12 Filipino Foods for All Saints Day

All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day  are traditional Catholic holidays set aside to commemorate all the saints and the souls of the dead. It is a part of Filipino tradition to cook and prepare Native Filipino foods in our homes to commemorate our love ones who passed away and to enjoy the presence of the whole family.   Glutinous Rice or Malagkit is the star ingredient for this season.  My family’s favorite Native foods that we always prepare are Arroz Valenciana, Biko, Sapin Sapin and Kutsinta.

What is Glutinous rice ? It is a sticky rice, sweet rice, waxy rice, botan rice, biroin chal, mochi rice, and pearl rice, and pulut is a type of Asian rice that is especially sticky when cooked. It is called glutinous in the sense of being glue-like or sticky and not in the sense of containing gluten. While called “sticky”, it is not to be confused with the other varieties of Asian rice, which become sticky to one degree or another when cooked. (from Wikipedia)

Here are the Top 12 Filipino Foods prepared during All Saints Day.

1] Special Puto – Special Puto is the common pair for Dinuguan, you can always find both in many native restaurants in the Philippines. Puto is a steamed fluffy Rice Cake usually eaten as dessert.

2] Camote Delight Recipe is a Pinoy dessert that is so easy to prepare. Just peel off the skin and mashed the cook camote or sweet potato then add condensed milk, butter and sugar then mixed it and refrigerate.

3] Biko Recipe is a rice cake with caramel topping or latik and here is the recipe for Biko.  Biko is usually served during birthday parties, fiestas, Christmas, New Year and other celebrated events in Philippines.

4] Kutsinta Recipe is often served with puto and is good with freshly grated coconut. It is one of the traditional Filipino snack that is very easy to make, and can be found almost anywhere in the Philippines.

5] Pichi-pichi Recipe is a Filipino dessert made of coconut and cassava or kamoteng kahoy, another delicious cake or “puto” enjoyed by many Filipino, especially in parties.

6] Puto Lanson Recipe is made of Cassava or balinghoy in Ilonggo. It is a very popular afternoon treat in the Western Visayas region offered by street vendors.

7] Cassava Cake Recipe is a classic Filipino dessert enjoyed all year round. Cassava Cake is made of freshly grated cassava, eggs, coconut milk and sugar and baked in round “leche flan” tin molds or the regular rectangular cake pan.

8] 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.

9] Sapin-Sapin Recipe, made from rice flour or rice that has been soaked overnight then crushed into a paste, sometimes yams or yam flour, coconut milk and sugar. Each layer is tinted (the bottom one a deep ube-like purple, the middle a golden yolk yellow,the top one white), and steamed before the next layer is added.

10] Cassava Suman Recipe, another Filipino native “kakanin” that is good for snacks.  It consists of grated coconut and cassava wrapped in banana leaves. It is sweet, chewy and regularly brown in color.

11] Palitaw Recipe, the Palitaw is a small, flat, sweet rice cake eaten in the Philippines. Palitaw is made from malagkit or sticky rice washed, soaked, and then ground. Cooking Palitaw is very easy.

12] Ginataan or Ginataang Halo halo Recipe is a native Pinoy snack with a  powerhouse of nutrients and vitamins made with Gata (coconut milk), Saging na Saba (Cardava banana),  Kamote (sweet potato), Sago (Tapioca Pearls), Bilo-bilo (Sticky glutinous rice balls), and Langka (jackfruit).