Southeast Asia

Embutido Recipe: Filipino Steamed Meat Roll for Celebrations

Name: Embutido Recipe: Filipino Steamed Meat Roll for Celebrations
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 55 min
Total time: 2 h 15 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Filipino
Ingredients: 700 g Ground pork; 100 g Onion; 90 g Carrot; 70 g Red bell pepper; 60 g Chopped sweet pickle; 45 g Raisins; 55 g Breadcrumbs; 2 Eggs; 2 tbsp Banana ketchup; 1 1/2 tbsp Soy sauce; 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce; 2 tsp Annatto oil; 1 tsp Salt; 1/2 tsp Black pepper; 1/4 tsp Nutmeg; 3 Boiled eggs; 4 Sausages; 60 g Processed cheese; 40 cm lengths, 4 sheets Aluminum foil; 30 cm lengths, 2 sheets Baking parchment; 4 tbsp Banana ketchup; 3 tbsp Vinegar; 2 tsp Neutral oil; 2 tsp Annatto seeds; 2 tbsp Neutral oil

A recipe for embutido, the Filipino celebration meat roll, made with ground pork. Covers rolling egg and sausage inside, steaming time, an internal temperature of 71°C, using banana ketchup and annatto, how it is eaten at Noche Buena, storage and how to avoid failures.

Published: October 24, 2026Total: 2 hr 15 minLevel: Intermediate

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 8

Prepare the eggs and vegetables

15 min

Boiling eggs, cutting carrot, onion and red bell pepper into 5 mm dice, and draining pickles in a sieve — Cut the vegetables to 5 mm and drain the pickles, and the meat mixture is less likely to loosen

Medium heat. Put 3 eggs in a small pot with water to cover, and when it boils, lower to medium-low and boil for 10 minutes. Cool in cold water, peel and cut lengthwise into quarters. Cut the carrot, onion and red bell pepper into 5 mm dice, and drain the pickles in a sieve for 5 minutes. The pickles should be at the point where pressing with a finger no longer drips liquid, leaving only damp bits. If the vegetables in the meat mixture are large, hollows form when you roll it, so use the size that sits on a spoon as the guide.

STEP 22 / 8

Mix the meat

10 min

Vegetables, pickles, raisins, breadcrumbs, eggs and banana ketchup being mixed into ground pork — Stop mixing when the ingredients are evenly spread and the mixture is a little sticky

No heat is used. In a large bowl put the ground pork, onion, carrot, red bell pepper, pickles, raisins, breadcrumbs, 2 eggs, banana ketchup, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, annatto oil, salt, black pepper and nutmeg. Turn from the bottom with a rubber spatula until the red color and the ingredients are spread throughout and the meat is a little sticky and clings thinly to the sides of the bowl. The mixture should hold together and fall heavily when scooped with the spatula. Kneading long by hand overworks it, so stop when you can still see a few white flecks of fat.

STEP 33 / 8

Cook a small test and taste

5 min

A small test patty of embutido mixture being cooked in a frying pan — Cooking a small test and tasting it avoids the failure of finding out only after steaming that it is bland

Medium heat. Take just 1 tbsp of the mixture, make a small round 1 cm thick and cook 2 minutes per side in a frying pan. When the color has changed through to the center and clear juices run, taste it. If it is bland, add 1/4 tsp salt; if it needs sweetness, add 2 tsp banana ketchup. Do not taste the raw mixture. Deciding the saltiness with a cooked sample reduces failures after steaming.

STEP 44 / 8

Spread on foil and place the core

12 min

Meat mixture spread on foil lined with parchment, with boiled egg, sausage and cheese placed down the center — Put the core in the center and leave the left and right ends free so the filling is less likely to leak while steaming

No heat is used. Spread out about 40 cm of aluminum foil and lay parchment on top. Put half of the meat mixture on it and spread it into a rectangle about 20 cm wide, 18 cm deep and 1.5 cm thick. Place the boiled egg, the lengthwise-halved sausage and the 1 cm sticks of cheese in a straight line down the center. If the core goes all the way to the edges it leaks from the end of the roll, so leave 2 cm on the left and right.

STEP 55 / 8

Roll into a tube and wrap twice

10 min

Embutido mixture rolled into a tube with parchment and foil, both ends twisted — A tube about 6 cm in diameter balances cooking through and the look of the cross-section

No heat is used. Lifting from the near edge together with the parchment, roll so the meat mixture encloses the core. Shape it into a tube about 6 cm in diameter and lightly close the seam with your fingers. With the parchment kept on the inside, wrap in foil and twist both ends like a candy wrapper. Then wrap it again in another sheet of foil. Wrapping too tight tends to tear it in the steam, so just enough to hold the shape.

STEP 66 / 8

Steam through to the center

45 min

Foil-wrapped embutido arranged in a steamer and steaming in the steam — Send up strong steam, then lower to medium and steam for 45 minutes without letting the steam break

Bring up steam over high heat, then medium. Put water in the steamer, and when steam is rising firmly, arrange the embutido tubes of about 6 cm in diameter. Cover, lower to medium and steam for 45 minutes at a heat where steam keeps coming out and the water keeps simmering. If the water seems about to run low, add boiling water. If the packages sit in the water they get watery, so keep the water level below the steaming rack.

STEP 77 / 8

Check the internal temperature and rest

35 min

A thermometer inserted into the center of steamed embutido to check that it is cooked through — For a ground meat dish, confirm an internal temperature of 71°C or higher and cut after letting it cool slightly

Turn off the heat. Open a package, insert a thermometer into the center of the thickest part, and check that it is 71°C or higher. If it hasn't reached it, rewrap and return it to the medium-heat steamer for 10 more minutes. Once the temperature is reached, open the foil slightly and let it cool for 20 minutes without spilling the juices. Then rewrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes, and it is less likely to collapse when sliced into 1.5 cm rounds.

STEP 88 / 8

Slice, and brown if you like

8 min

Slices of embutido lightly pan-fried to brown the cut faces — Cutting and pan-frying after steaming makes the outside toasty and goes well with banana ketchup

Medium heat. Cut the cooled embutido into 1.5 cm slices. You can eat them as they are, but for a toastier note, heat 2 tsp oil in a frying pan and cook the cut faces for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes per side. Stop when the surface has a thin golden color and the egg yolk is warm. High heat would burn the sugars in the raisins and ketchup, so move the slices to a plate as soon as they have color.

0 / 0

Ingredients

1 / 3

The meat mixture

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Ground pork	700 g	If lean, mix in 80 g thinly sliced pork belly chopped to 5 mm
Onion	100 g	5 mm dice. Squeeze lightly if watery
Carrot	90 g	5 mm dice. Gives color to the cross-section
Red bell pepper	70 g	5 mm dice. Green bell pepper also works
Chopped sweet pickle	60 g	Drain in a sieve for 5 minutes. Sweet relish also works
Raisins	45 g	Chop in half if large
Breadcrumbs	55 g	Add dry. Holds the meat juices
Eggs	2	For the mixture. Beat well
Banana ketchup	2 tbsp	Adds a sweet red color to the mixture
Soy sauce	1 1/2 tbsp	The same amount of Filipino soy sauce if you have it
Worcestershire sauce	1 tbsp	Helps with sweetness and aroma
Annatto oil	2 tsp	See the method below. If omitting, 1 tsp paprika
Salt	1 tsp	3/4 tsp if the sausage is very salty
Black pepper	1/2 tsp	Coarsely ground recommended
Nutmeg	1/4 tsp	Omit if you don't have it

2 / 3

The core and finishing

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Boiled eggs	3	Cut 1 egg lengthwise into quarters
Sausages	4	About 10 cm long. Halve lengthwise
Processed cheese	60 g	1 cm sticks. Too much leaks out easily
Aluminum foil	40 cm lengths, 4 sheets	Use doubled
Baking parchment	30 cm lengths, 2 sheets	Keeps the mixture from sticking to the foil
Banana ketchup	4 tbsp	For the table
Vinegar	3 tbsp	Make a small bowl with 20 g chopped onion and a little chili
Neutral oil	2 tsp	If slicing and pan-frying

3 / 3

Annatto oil

Ingredient	Amount	How to use
Annatto seeds	2 tsp	For coloring. Strain before use
Neutral oil	2 tbsp	Warm on low heat

0 / 0

On a Celebration Day in the Kitchen, a Meat Roll Comes Out of the Steam

Lift the lid of the steamer a little, and the juices and the sweet-and-sour smell of pickles rise from the foil tube. Before it is cut it is a plain silver package, but let it cool a little and slice it, and the yellow of the egg, the red of the sausage and the orange of the carrot appear on the cut face. Embutido is a meat dish that, on a Filipino table, is the kind where "if you set it on a platter, people gather naturally."

Embutido, white rice, garlic rice, a small bowl of vinegar and banana ketchup arranged on a home table — Slice embutido onto a platter and serve it with rice, something sour and a sweet sauce, and it becomes the center of the table

Embutido is a word that in the Spanish-speaking world broadly refers to cased sausages and stuffed meats, but Filipino embutido is a home meat roll in which ground meat is rolled around a core of egg and sausage, wrapped in foil and steamed, without a casing. Panlasang Pinoy also presents the Filipino version as a dish wrapped in aluminum foil and steamed, not a baked meatloaf. In Kawaling Pinoy's explanation too, the basis is ground pork mixed with carrot, sweet pickle, raisins and so on.

What is hard when making it in a home kitchen is the sequence more than the flavor. Don't make the meat mixture too loose. Put the egg in the center. Steam it once wrapped, and let it rest rather than cutting it right away. Because it is ground meat, check the internal temperature. Keep these four, and without any special equipment you can get quite close to the sweet-and-salty character of a Filipino celebration dish and the fun of its cross-section.

It works whether you lean it toward rice and egg like longganisa, or toward a party platter to share like lumpiang shanghai. The savory aroma of fat is not as strong as lechon, but with sweet ketchup and a small bowl of vinegar, it makes plain white rice go down very easily. Set beside pancit canton or adobo (in Japanese), the celebration platter becomes much more Filipino at once.

What Is Embutido? A Spanish Name and a Filipino Home Dish

Banana ketchup, annatto seeds, a thermometer, foil, a steamer, raisins and pickles laid out in a kitchen as material for deciding what to buy — With embutido, it is not the meat but the sweet sauce, the coloring, the steamer and judging the internal temperature that are easy to be unsure about

If you were to explain embutido simply, it is "Filipino steamed meatloaf," but calling it just meatloaf makes it a little thin. It is not baked in a loaf pan in the oven; a foil-wrapped tube is steamed, cooled and cut into rounds. With a boiled egg or sausage at the center, a pattern appears when you cut it. Sweet pickle and raisins go in, and banana ketchup or a sweet sauce is served alongside. These points are what make it a Filipino table.

The name comes from the Spanish embutido. In the Spanish-speaking world it is used to mean sausages and stuffed meats, but as a Filipino dish, rather than a Spanish sausage transplanted unchanged, it is more natural to think that meat dishes from the colonial era onward, canned and processed meats, and home steamed dishes mixed to make today's celebration meat roll. TagalogLang also explains that the name derives from the Spanish word for "sausage," while the Filipino version is closer to a meat roll.

It is often served on Noche Buena, the table of Christmas Eve night, and on days when people gather, such as birthdays and fiestas. A good thing about it is that it can be steamed the day before and kept in the refrigerator. You can serve it simply by slicing before guests arrive, and if you lightly pan-fry the slices, you get a toasty note as well. This is why it also suits year-end and potluck occasions.

Elements often seen locally	What to keep	What can be substituted
Ground pork mixture	Use ground meat that is not too lean	Mix in up to 30% ground beef and pork
Sweet pickle and raisins	Put sweet-sour notes inside the meat	If you have no pickle, a little chopped pickled shallot
Core of boiled egg and sausage	Makes the cross-section and the substance	The sausage need not be Filipino-style
Wrapped in foil and steamed	Shape into a tube and cook with steam	Line the inside with parchment
Banana ketchup	Add a sweet red sauce at the table	If you have none, ketchup with a little vinegar

When making it, you don't need to search too hard from the start for the "authentic red hot dogs" or "sweet Filipino cheese." What to protect is putting sweet-sour notes into the ground meat, steaming it in a tube, making a center that shows when you cut it, and putting a sweet sauce and something sour on the table. The meat and eggs themselves, on the other hand, are fine from your ordinary shop.

Ingredients: Embutido Made With Ordinary Ground Pork

This makes two tubes of about 20 cm, for 6 servings. It is a quantity to slice and serve on a platter. A family of four can comfortably finish it by eating one tube that day and using the other for breakfast or a lunchbox the next day.

Ground pork, carrot, onion, red bell pepper, pickles, raisins, breadcrumbs, eggs, sausage, banana ketchup, annatto seeds and foil laid out as ingredients — Embutido combines sweet pickle, raisins, egg and sausage in ground pork to create the cross-section

Put the oil and annatto seeds in a small pot and warm over low heat for about 2 minutes. When the oil turns orange and small bubbles appear around the seeds, turn off the heat and strain. Scorching the seeds black brings out bitterness, so don't use high heat. Annatto oil plays more of a role of color than of aroma, so if you don't have it there is no need to force an alternative spice; making up the red with banana ketchup is enough.

Allergy and food safety

This recipe uses pork, eggs, breadcrumbs and sauces that may contain wheat, and soy sauce that contains soy. Because bacteria can get into the center of ground meat dishes, cook it through fully, aiming for an internal temperature of 71°C or higher. Do not reuse the bowl, spatula or cutting board that touched the raw meat for the cooked meat roll or the serving plate.

What is worth looking for specially is the Filipino seasonings that tend not to be in ordinary supermarkets, and a tool to check doneness. Ground pork, eggs, sausage and cheese are fine if you choose them at your usual shop.

Instructions: Mix, Roll, Steam, Then Cool

With embutido, the result depends less on the work of mixing the meat than on cooking through after rolling and on how it is rested. Cut right after steaming, the juices run and the cross-section collapses. Check the temperature, let it cool slightly, and cut only after it has cooled a little. Just by not rushing here, you get the neat slices of a celebration dish.

Why not to cut it right away

Just after steaming, the meat juices are hot and the breadcrumbs have not finished holding their moisture. Cut hot, the cross-section collapses and gaps form around the egg. Letting it cool 20 minutes and then briefly chilling lets the meat and filling settle so it slices thin. If you want to eat it warm, it is neater to slice it first and then lightly pan-fry it.

Branches That Prevent Failure: Deal With Wateriness, Collapse and Rawness First

Failures in embutido come from the moisture and doneness of the meat mixture more than from small differences in seasoning. Because sweet pickle, vegetables, egg and ketchup go in, it is a dish that tends to have more water than hamburger. If you force a loose mixture into a roll, hollows form while steaming and the egg alone comes out when you cut it.

Symptom	Likely cause	How to fix it
Sags even before rolling	Pickle or onion is too wet	Add 2 tbsp breadcrumbs and rest 20 minutes in the refrigerator
Collapses when cut	Cut right after steaming	Allow 20 minutes of cooling and at least 15 minutes in the refrigerator
Red in the center	Tube is too thick, steam is weak	Keep to 6 cm or less in diameter and steam over medium heat where the steam doesn't break
Juice leaks from the foil	Single-layer wrap, weak twist at the ends	Double the foil and place the core 2 cm in from the ends
Too sweet	Too many raisins and ketchup	Serve a bowl of vinegar and use 30 g raisins next time
Color looks dull	No annatto, not browned	2 tsp annatto oil, or slice and brown over medium heat

Adjusting the seasoning after steaming all of the mixture is too late. The small test cooking in step 3 looks like a bother but is the most effective step. While keeping the sweetness characteristic of Filipino home cooking, if you are eating it with plain white rice, a somewhat clearer saltiness keeps it from going blurry at the table.

Another important point is to think about temperature and color separately. Ground meat with annatto or ketchup can look slightly red in the center. Conversely, it can be brown and still not hot enough. FoodSafety.gov gives a guide of cooking ground meat and sausage to 160°F, about 71°C. Embutido is a thick tube, so it is easiest to check by inserting the thermometer from the side to the center.

Sliced embutido in a storage container, a wrapped meat roll, rice and banana ketchup set in a kitchen, as a storage scene — Refrigerate or freeze embutido after steaming, and slice and pan-fry it to eat easily the next day

Put steamed embutido in the refrigerator within 2 hours of cooling slightly. Keep it in foil in an airtight container for 3 days in the refrigerator. If storing it already sliced, the cut faces dry out easily, so put the slices in a container without stacking and warm them in a frying pan the next day. If freezing, wrap the tube in plastic wrap and put it in a storage bag, for about 2 weeks. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator; if you are in a hurry, remove the foil, put it on a heatproof plate, cover loosely with plastic wrap and microwave at 600 W, checking every 2 minutes.

For the menu, white rice, garlic rice, a small bowl of vinegar and banana ketchup are the basics. If you add vegetables, refreshing ones like cucumber, tomato and boiled cabbage suit it. Because it is a sweet meat roll, pairing it with a spicy coconut stew like Bicol express (in Japanese) or a sour soup like sinigang, even among Filipino dishes, keeps the table from getting heavy. For breakfast, you can also put it on rice with tortang talong or a fried egg.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Can I bake it in the oven?

A. You can, but I recommend a steamer the first time. In the oven, bake it still wrapped in foil at 180°C for 45 to 55 minutes and check that the internal temperature is 71°C or higher. Putting it in a loaf pan changes how the moisture escapes, so the moistness typical of the Filipino home version comes out more easily in a steamer.

Q. What if I don't have banana ketchup?

A. For the mixture, you can substitute 2 tbsp ordinary ketchup mixed with 1/2 tsp vinegar and 1 tsp sugar. For the table, mixing 4 tbsp ketchup with 1 tsp vinegar and 1/2 tsp sugar gives a somewhat closer sweet-sour note. However, the round sweetness special to banana ketchup is different, so if you will keep making Filipino dishes, one bottle will get reused.

Q. Can I leave out the raisins?

A. Yes. The sweet bits are gone, so increase the pickle to 70 g or add 1 tsp sugar to the mixture. If someone in the family dislikes raisins, making just one of the tubes without raisins makes it easy to divide at the table.

Q. Can I use ham instead of sausage?

A. Yes. For ham, folding it to 1 cm width as the core makes fewer hollows than cutting it into long strips. The red line in the cross-section shows better with sausage, though. If you use ordinary frankfurters, they can be salty, so reduce the salt in the mixture to 3/4 tsp.

Q. Is it all right in a lunchbox?

A. If you pack it, steam it the day before and refrigerate, and the next morning slice it and pan-fry both sides over medium heat. Let it cool before putting it in the lunchbox and pack the wet sauce in a separate container. Avoid hot weather or days of carrying it a long time, and use an ice pack.

Local Sources Consulted

Panlasang Pinoy, "Pork Embutido (Steamed Filipino Meatloaf)": confirmed the Filipino version as a dish of ground pork mixed with vegetables, cheese and raisins, wrapped in foil and steamed.
Kawaling Pinoy, "Pork Embutido (Filipino-style Meatloaf)": confirmed the combination of ground pork, carrot, sweet pickle, raisins and so on, and its place as a home meatloaf.
TagalogLang, "Recipe: Embutido (Filipino Meatloaf)": confirmed the spellings Embutido and Embotido, the Spanish origin of the name, and its description as a Filipino-style meat roll.
FoodSafety.gov, "Cook to a Safe Minimum Internal Temperature": confirmed the safe internal temperature for ground meat and sausage, 160°F, about 71°C.

Embutido is not a dish that pushes with flashy spices. Put sweet pickle and raisins in the meat mixture, roll in egg and sausage, steam, and cool before cutting. The steps are a few more, but the sense of "I made this" when it is laid out on a plate is large. If you go on to make more Filipino food, linking to lumpiang shanghai, fried for light snacking, longganisa for breakfast, and lechon as the star of a platter lets you use the same banana ketchup and annatto without waste.