Southeast Asia

Pochero: Filipino Meat Stew with Saba Bananas and Chickpeas

Name: Pochero: Filipino Meat Stew with Saba Bananas and Chickpeas
Prep time: 8 h 20 min
Cook time: 1 h 35 min
Total time: 9 h 55 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Filipino
Ingredients: 120 g Dried chickpeas (garbanzos); 450 g Beef shank; 250 g Pork shoulder (Boston butt) or pork shoulder block; 80 g Chorizo de Bilbao; 2 Saba bananas or plantains; 250 g Sweet potato; 1 (about 180 g) Potato; 1/4 head (about 250 g) Cabbage; 2 heads Bok choy; 100 g Green beans; 1 (about 200 g) Onion; 4 cloves Garlic; 2 (about 300 g) Tomatoes; 200 g Tomato sauce; 1 1/2 tbsp Patis; 900 ml Water; 1/2 tsp Whole black peppercorns; 1 Bay leaf; 3 tbsp Vegetable oil; 1/2 tsp, to start Salt; 4 bowls Hot cooked rice; 1 Calamansi, sudachi or lemon; A little Extra patis

A home-kitchen recipe for Filipino pochero: substitutes for saba bananas, how to use chickpeas, chorizo and patis, heat control that keeps the bananas whole, shopping, storage and serving it over white rice the way it's eaten in the Philippines.

Published: October 22, 2026Total: 9 hr 55 minLevel: Intermediate

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 8

Soak the chickpeas

8 hr

Dried chickpeas soaking in water as prep for pochero — Soak dried chickpeas overnight and use them once they've plumped up

Rinse 120 g dried chickpeas briefly and soak them in 4 times their volume of water. No heat needed. On days when the room is above 28°C (82°F), soak them in the refrigerator. They're ready when they've plumped up, the wrinkles on the skin have become shallow, and they feel slightly springy when pressed with a finger. If you're using canned chickpeas, drain them in a colander, rinse lightly and skip this step.

STEP 22 / 8

Brown the meat and chorizo

12 min

Browning meat and chorizo in a heavy pot for pochero — Brown the meat over medium heat, leaving the chorizo's red fat in the pot to flavor the broth

Cut the beef shank and pork shoulder into 4 cm (1 1/2 in) cubes and rub them all over with 1/3 tsp salt. Heat 1 1/2 tbsp oil in a heavy pot over medium heat and arrange the meat in a single layer. Leave each side undisturbed for 3 minutes and turn once it is browned. Add the chorizo for just the last 2 minutes, and when its red fat seeps out, remove it along with the meat. The fond on the bottom of the pot is flavor, so stop at brown, before it turns black.

STEP 33 / 8

Build the tomato base

10 min

Onion, garlic and tomato sauce cooking down into the pochero base — Reduce the tomatoes lightly to take the edge off their acidity before returning the meat

Add 1 tbsp oil to the same pot, then the onion and garlic, and sauté over medium heat for 4 minutes. When the edges of the onion turn translucent and the garlic smells fragrant, add the diced tomatoes and cook 4 minutes more, crushing them with a wooden spoon and scraping up the browned bits. Add the tomato sauce, simmer over medium-low heat for 2 minutes to reduce, and move on once a little red oil rises at the edges.

STEP 44 / 8

Gently simmer the meat and beans

45–55 min

Meat, chorizo and chickpeas simmering over low heat in tomato-red broth — Simmer the meat and beans gently over low heat. A hard boil clouds the broth and toughens the meat

Return the browned meat and chorizo to the pot and add the soaked chickpeas (if using canned, add them in step 6 instead), 900 ml water, the peppercorns, bay leaf and 1 tbsp patis. Bring to a boil over high heat, skim off the foam, then turn the heat down to low. Keep it at a bare simmer with small bubbles appearing here and there along the side of the pot, set the lid slightly ajar and simmer for 45 to 55 minutes. It's done when a skewer slides into the beef shank without resistance, the edges of the meat start to fall apart and the broth has thickened slightly. The chickpeas should be soft enough to crush with your thumb. If the broth reduces too much, add boiling water 100 ml at a time.

STEP 55 / 8

Fry the bananas and potatoes

12 min

Browning saba bananas and sweet potato in a skillet — Browning the bananas and potatoes first helps them keep their shape in the broth

While the meat simmers, peel the saba bananas (or slightly green bananas) and cut them into 3 cm (1 1/4 in) pieces, and cut the sweet potato and potato into 2.5 cm cubes. Heat 1/2 tbsp oil in a skillet over medium heat and arrange the bananas and potatoes in it. Fry 2 to 3 minutes per side until lightly browned. They don't need to cook through. Searing the surface forms a skin that keeps them from breaking up once they go back into the pot.

STEP 66 / 8

Simmer the potatoes with the beans

10–12 min

Returning the fried bananas, sweet potato, chickpeas and green beans to the pochero pot — Return the fried ingredients in the second half so they absorb the broth while keeping their shape

Once the meat is tender, add the fried sweet potato and potato, half of the bananas and the green beans to the pot. If you're using canned chickpeas, drain them in a colander, rinse lightly and add them now. Set the remaining bananas aside for serving. Adjust to medium-low so the pot simmers steadily and cook for 10 to 12 minutes. It's ready when a skewer passes easily through the potatoes, the broth has thickened a little and the bananas still have their edges. Stirring hard with a wooden spoon here will crush the beans and bananas, so just give the pot a gentle shake.

STEP 77 / 8

Lay the greens on top and steam

6 min

Finishing pochero with cabbage and bok choy laid over the pot — Lay the greens on last and let low heat and residual heat wilt them

Spread the cabbage and bok choy over the top of the pot and cover. Keep the heat low. Steam for 3 minutes, and turn off the heat when the leaves have gone from bright green to a slightly deeper green and the stems begin to wilt. Drizzle in the remaining 1/2 tbsp patis and season with salt. The greens keep cooking in the residual heat, so don't stew them to mush; that way they balance the weight of the sweet broth.

STEP 88 / 8

Plate it up and serve with rice

5 min

Pochero served in a bowl with rice — Serve pochero in deep bowls and spoon the sweet broth over rice a little at a time as you eat

In deep bowls, arrange the meat, beans, potatoes and greens first, then top with the bananas you set aside. Pour in about 1 1/2 ladlefuls of broth and set the chorizo where it can be seen. Serve with white rice and squeeze over a little calamansi, sudachi or lemon if you like. The broth is piping hot, and the bananas break easily, so serve with a large spoon, scooping from underneath.

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Ingredients

1 / 3

Main ingredients

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Dried chickpeas (garbanzos)	120 g	Use 240 g if cooked/canned. With canned, skip step 1. About 4 1/4 oz dried
Beef shank	450 g	Beef chuck or a block of beef plate also works. About 1 lb
Pork shoulder (Boston butt) or pork shoulder block	250 g	Pork belly is richer but releases more fat
Chorizo de Bilbao	80 g	Or a small amount of Spanish chorizo. Ordinary wieners don't have the same aroma
Saba bananas or plantains	2	Substitute 2 bananas that are still a little green, plus extra sweet potato
Sweet potato	250 g	Skin on, cut into 2.5 cm (1 in) cubes. Adds sweetness and holds its shape
Potato	1 (about 180 g)	Sweet potato alone is fine
Cabbage	1/4 head (about 250 g)	Cut into large pieces
Bok choy	2 heads	Stands in for pechay. Komatsuna also works
Green beans	100 g	Cut into 5 cm (2 in) lengths

2 / 3

Broth and aromatics

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Onion	1 (about 200 g)	1 cm dice
Garlic	4 cloves	Minced. Or 2 tsp jarred minced garlic
Tomatoes	2 (about 300 g)	1.5 cm dice. Fully ripe ones work best
Tomato sauce	200 g	Or 150 g tomato puree plus 50 ml water
Patis	1 1/2 tbsp	Thai fish sauce (nam pla) works. Salt alone makes a different dish
Water	900 ml	About 3 3/4 cups. Top up with boiling water if it reduces too much
Whole black peppercorns	1/2 tsp	Or 1/3 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
Bay leaf	1	Optional
Vegetable oil	3 tbsp	For browning
Salt	1/2 tsp, to start	Adjust for the salt in the patis and chorizo

3 / 3

To serve

Ingredient	Amount	Role
Hot cooked rice	4 bowls	The staple that soaks up the broth
Calamansi, sudachi or lemon	1	Brightens the sweetness on the plate
Extra patis	A little	For adding salt at the table

Allergies and food safety

This dish contains beef, pork, fish sauce and chorizo. If you have a fish or seafood allergy, leave out the patis and make up the salt with 2 tsp light soy sauce and 1/2 tsp salt; the aroma will move away from the original, though. Cook pork until it is white all the way through, to an internal temperature of 75°C (167°F) or higher. Don't reuse cutting boards, chopsticks or bowls that touched raw meat for serving.

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The story of pochero: a stew with sweet bananas for rainy days

Filipino pochero on the table with white rice and small side dishes — Pochero goes to the table in its pot, and the tomato-red broth is spooned over rice as you eat

Pochero becomes unmistakably Filipino at the moment you crush the tomatoes and the chorizo's red fat starts to bleed across the bottom of the pot. It is a meat stew, yet partway through, saba bananas and sweet potatoes go in. That can sound a little odd, but one bite explains it: the sweetness of the banana gently rounds out the salty patis, the richness of the meat and the acidity of the tomato.

Pochero (Pochero / Puchero, also spelled putsero in Tagalog) is the stew puchero, brought over during the Spanish colonial period, that took root as a Filipino home dish. Where the Iberian stews put meat, beans and vegetables into one pot, the Filipino version adds saba bananas, chorizo de Bilbao, chickpeas, pechay or cabbage and patis, turning it into a dish with sweetness and the aroma of fish sauce.

Compare English-language Filipino recipe sites and you'll see that pochero varies from home to home. Panlasang Pinoy presents it as a straightforward stew of pork, chickpeas, ripe plantains and patis, while Kawaling Pinoy notes that frying the saba bananas, potatoes, carrots and chorizo first and then returning them to the pot keeps them from falling apart. Wikipedia's Puchero entry also describes the Filipino version as including saba bananas, chorizo, chickpeas, tomato sauce and leafy greens.

The hard part in a home kitchen isn't sourcing every authentic ingredient. What you need to protect is the combination of sweet banana, beans, tomato, fish sauce and chorizo aroma. No saba bananas? Pair bananas that are still a little green with sweet potato. No chorizo de Bilbao? Use a small amount of Spanish chorizo. Chickpeas can be dried or canned, as long as you handle them so they stay whole in the broth.

Among Filipino stews, it plays a different role from sour sinigang (in Japanese), tinola (in Japanese) with its clear chicken broth, and kare-kare, thickened with peanuts. Pochero is the dish that turns a meat stew into a sweet-and-salty home dish made for rice.

Pochero or puchero?

In Spanish it's puchero; recipes from the English-speaking Philippines more often write pochero, and in Tagalog it is sometimes spelled putsero. This article uses "pochero" and gives Pochero / Puchero as the local spellings.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Pochero ingredients: meat, chorizo, chickpeas, saba bananas, vegetables and tomato sauce laid out in the kitchen — Pochero isn't just meat and vegetables; saba bananas, chickpeas, chorizo and patis give it its shape

This recipe serves 4. It combines beef shank and pork shoulder. You can make it with only beef or only pork, but a little of the shank's gelatin plus the shoulder's fat gives a broth that stands up to the sweet bananas. If you want a lighter version with chicken, shorten the simmering time and enjoy it as a different dish.

Substitution guide

Closer to the original	Practical substitute	Why it matters
Saba banana	Bananas still a little green + sweet potato	Not just sweetness; it holds its shape in the broth
Chorizo de Bilbao	A small amount of Spanish chorizo	The red fat and smoked paprika aroma
Chickpeas	Dried or canned chickpeas	Whole-bean texture, different from the pork-and-beans version
Patis	Thai fish sauce (nam pla)	Fish sauce saltiness and fermented aroma
Pechay	Bok choy, komatsuna	Greens go in last so the stew doesn't get too heavy

Choosing the specialty ingredients

Shopping for pochero: chorizo, chickpeas, patis, bananas, tomato sauce and a pressure cooker in the kitchen — The items that take some thought are chorizo, chickpeas, patis and a pressure cooker. Ordinary meat and vegetables from the neighborhood are plenty

The things worth hunting for aren't ordinary beef or onions. The decisions are about the chorizo that sets the aroma, chickpeas that keep their bite, patis for that Filipino saltiness, and a pot that makes dried beans and meat easy to cook.

Saba bananas can be hard to find at an ordinary supermarket, so there's no need to search everywhere; look at a Filipino or Asian grocery if there's one nearby. At home, briefly frying bananas that are still a little green and returning them to the pot, with sweet potato for sweetness and structure, is the more reliable route. Patis, on the other hand, is a high priority if you plan to keep cooking Filipino food: one bottle also goes into tinola (in Japanese), sinigang (in Japanese) and pancit canton. Look for it at Asian grocers or online.

Too much chorizo pushes the dish toward Spanish cooking. About 80 g for 4 servings, just enough for a little red fat to show in the broth, is right. Ordinary wieners lose the smokiness and paprika aroma, so if you use them, think of it as a "no-chorizo home version."

Method

Pochero tends to go wrong if everything goes into the pot at once. Brown the meat to build aroma, cook the tomatoes to soften their acidity, make the meat tender, and only then return the bananas and greens at the end. Not simmering the sweet ingredients for a long time from the start is the key to a dish that looks like a "stew with bananas" on the plate.

Tip

Frying the bananas and potatoes before they go back into the pot firms up their surface so they're less likely to fall apart. Don't let the broth boil hard; keep it at a steady simmer with small bubbles.

Common problems and how to fix them

A storage container of pochero and a small plate of broken-down banana, comparing how it falls apart — Overcooked bananas fall apart. Searing the surface and returning them at the end helps them keep their shape

The most common failure with pochero isn't that it tastes too sweet; it's that the sweet ingredients break down and make the whole broth heavy. Saba bananas are a cooking banana and hold their shape well, but ordinary dessert bananas melt quickly if they're overripe. Choose ones that still feel a little firm and have few black spots on the peel.

The bananas melt

It's one of three things: overripe, overcooked or overstirred. Don't put all the bananas in the pot; keeping half for plating makes it reliable. If they do break down, a squeeze of lemon and extra black pepper will tighten the sweetness. It will look a little different, but it's still delicious as a stew over rice.

The broth is thin

Either the tomatoes weren't cooked long enough, or there was too much water when simmering the meat. Reducing the tomato sauce for 2 minutes in step 3 and simmering with the lid slightly ajar in step 4 helps the broth cling to the meat. If it still seems thin at the end, lift out the solids, reduce just the broth over medium heat for 5 minutes, return everything and serve.

The meat is tough

This usually happens when it's kept at a hard boil. Hold it at low heat with small bubbles and wait until the meat fibers loosen. If you're short on time, use a pressure cooker: about 25 minutes at high pressure with 10 minutes of natural release. Even then, don't pressure-cook the bananas, potatoes or greens. Combine them afterward in a pot.

It's too salty

Patis and chorizo both bring salt. Don't add much salt at the start; adjust when finishing in step 7. If it ends up too salty, boil a little potato or cabbage in a separate pot and add it. Covering it up with sugar gives you a vague sweetness instead of pochero's sweet-and-salty character.

How it's eaten, and making it ahead

Pochero is most at home with white rice. It isn't a stew you drink as soup; it's a dish where you break up the meat, potatoes, beans, greens and bananas a little at a time on the plate and let the rice soak up the tomato-red broth. In Filipino home cooking, the meat isn't made the sole star; having bananas and greens on the same plate is what makes it satisfying.

At the table, rather than ladling out everyone's portion at once, serve with a large spoon so each plate gets an even share of meat, potato, banana and greens; it keeps the dish looking neat. Eat the first bite as is, then squeeze on a little calamansi or sudachi partway through to bring back the tomato's acidity and the patis's salt. A small dish of lightly pickled cucumber or pickled red onion on the side keeps the sweet broth from feeling heavy.

If you make a big pot for Sunday lunch, it stretches to lunch the next day. Refrigerate in a clean airtight container and eat within 3 days. To freeze, leave out the bananas and greens and portion only the meat, beans, potatoes and broth. Bananas lose their texture when frozen, so it's more natural to fry fresh ones in a skillet on the day you eat and add them then.

To reheat, start in a pot over low heat. If the broth has set, add 2 to 3 tbsp water and warm until it simmers. Aim for 75°C (167°F) or higher in the center, and if you're adding greens, add them only for the last minute. In a microwave, put it in a deep bowl so the meat and potatoes don't break up, heat at 600 W for 2 minutes, stir gently, then heat 1 to 2 minutes more.

For a full menu, add one thing with acidity. On days you serve it with something fried like lumpiang shanghai (in Japanese), use less meat in the pochero and more greens. Rather than following it with another rice dish like arroz caldo (in Japanese), finishing with firmly cooked white rice, pickled cucumber and the sourness of calamansi or sudachi keeps the meal lighter.

Variations and regional differences: every household's pot is different

Pochero isn't a Spanish stew preserved unchanged; it's a dish that has been remade again and again in Filipino kitchens. So rather than thinking there's one right answer, it's more practical to think about which elements to protect.

Beef version

Beef shank, beef plate or chuck releases gelatin into the broth. Bone-in meat makes it deeper still, but because it isn't always easy to find, the combination of beef shank and pork shoulder is easier to work with. In the beef version, use less chorizo and let the flavor of the meat come forward.

Pork version

The pork version often seen on Kawaling Pinoy and Panlasang Pinoy has a sweetness of fat that pairs well with the bananas. Pork belly alone makes it heavy, so at home, pork shoulder and a small amount of chorizo make it easier to keep eating.

Chicken version

With chicken thighs, about 25 minutes of simmering is enough. Don't simmer the meat long in step 4, and use canned chickpeas. The chicken version tends toward a cleaner flavor, so go light on the patis and add lemon or sudachi at the end to pull it together.

Pork-and-beans version

Filipino home recipes sometimes mention using canned pork and beans in place of the chickpeas and tomato sauce. It adds sweetness and body, which makes it easy for kids to eat, but the whole-bean texture and the tomato's acidity get weaker. This article uses the chickpea version as the base, but for a quick weeknight dinner, the pork-and-beans version is perfectly natural home cooking too.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. Can I make it with regular bananas if I can't find saba bananas?

Yes, but avoid overripe bananas. Choose ones with few black spots on the peel that still feel a little firm, cut them into 3 cm pieces, brown them over medium heat and return them at the end. Adding more sweet potato to make up for sweetness and structure keeps it reliable.

Q2. Is it no longer authentic without chorizo?

Not entirely. Pochero is home cooking, and even the type of meat varies. That said, the red fat of chorizo de Bilbao or Spanish chorizo adds a smoky aroma to the tomato stew. If you leave it out, adding just 1/2 tsp paprika fills some of that gap.

Q3. Can I use canned chickpeas instead of dried?

Canned is fine for your first time. Drain in a colander, rinse lightly and add them with the potatoes in step 6. If they go in from step 4, they become too soft. Dried beans keep more of their own aroma and give the broth more body.

Q4. Can I make the whole thing in a pressure cooker?

A pressure cooker is well suited to the first stage of cooking the meat and chickpeas: about 25 minutes at high pressure with 10 minutes of natural release. But don't pressure-cook the bananas, sweet potato, potato or greens. Under pressure they fall apart easily and turn the broth sweet and cloudy.

Q5. Does it lose flavor when made ahead?

The meat and beans actually taste more settled the next day. What suffers is the texture of the bananas and greens. If you're making it ahead, use fewer bananas and greens, and on the day you reheat, add freshly fried bananas or komatsuna to get closer to how it looked on the first day.

Sources

Wikipedia, Puchero
Panlasang Pinoy, Pochero Recipe
Kawaling Pinoy, Pork Pochero (Pocherong Baboy)