Chicharon substitute

Best substitute

Plain Pork Rinds or Cracklings

Use the same amount by weight as the chicharon you are replacing

Best for snacking

Close match

This is chicharon, sold under an English name. Any bag labelled pork rinds, cracklings, chicharrones or scratchings is fried pork skin with salt, which is what chicharon is. It crunches the same, it crushes the same, and it dissolves into a sauce the same way.

Other chicharon substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Crisp Fried Bacon, Finely Chopped
Taste and texture differ
Use 4 oz bacon for every 2 oz chicharon
The best answer when you want pork, salt, fat and crunch all at once from an ordinary supermarket.
What changes
Chopped over sisig or a bowl of bulalo it reads as a savoury pork topping in the same way chicharon does.
Best for
topping sisig, garnishing soups and stews, sprinkling over rice or vegetables, breakfast plates
Prep. Fry until genuinely brittle, drain on paper, then chop small. Save the fat for frying garlic.
Two things change. It is smoked, and that smoke is loud next to chicharon's clean fried-pork flavour. And it is meat rather than skin, so it stays chewy at the edges instead of shattering, and it will never dissolve into a sauce. Use unsmoked streaky bacon or salt pork if you can find it and the gap narrows a lot.
3Fried Shallots or Garlic Chips
Different taste
Use ¼ cup for every ½ cup crushed chicharon
The best purely-crunch substitute, and the one to use when the chicharon is a garnish rather than an ingredient.
What changes
Fried alliums bring the same brittle shatter and the same savoury, fatty, salty hit that makes a topping worth having.
Best for
topping sisig, pancit or lugaw, garnishing soups, sprinkling on rice, vegetarian versions of Filipino dishes
Prep. Slice thin, fry in a shallow layer of oil over medium heat until pale gold, then drain; they darken after they leave the pan.
It tastes sweet-savoury and oniony rather than of pork, and it goes soft in liquid within a minute or two, so add it at the table rather than in the kitchen. It contributes nothing to the body of a sauce. Store-bought crispy fried shallots from an Asian market work perfectly and save you the frying.
4Toasted Panko or Crushed Crackers
Different taste
Use ½ cup for every ½ cup crushed chicharon
Purely a texture stand-in, and a decent one for a dry garnish.
What changes
Toasted panko is light, brittle and salty, and scattered over a sizzling plate it does the same job of interrupting soft food with something crisp.
Best for
garnishing sisig, topping baked dishes, coating fried food, pork-free versions
Prep. Toast panko dry in a pan with a spoon of oil and a pinch of salt until deep golden, about 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
No pork, no fat, no savoury depth, and it goes soggy faster than anything else here, within about thirty seconds on something wet. Frying the panko in a spoonful of bacon fat or lard rather than oil recovers a surprising amount of the missing richness.
5Chicharron de Harina (Wheat Puffs or Duros)
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume
Sold in the same aisle as pork rinds and confusingly under a similar name, these are puffed fried wheat snacks.
What changes
They have almost the same brittle-then-melting texture as chicharon, which makes them a genuinely good textural match for a pork-free version.
Best for
vegetarian toppings, snacking, garnishing dishes where the crunch matters most
Prep. Crush lightly in the bag with your hand; they shatter easily.
The texture is close, the flavour is not there at all: they taste of fried wheat and whatever seasoning is dusted on them. They also go stale-soft quickly once the bag is open. Not gluten-free, and not a swap for anyone who needed pork rinds for a low-carb reason.
6Nothing, With the Sauce Thickened Another Way
Taste and texture differ
Use 2 tbsp toasted rice powder or peanut butter for every 4 cups sauce
The honest option when crushed chicharon was being used for body rather than crunch, as in kare-kare or some dinuguan.
What changes
There is no substitute that both shatters and melts into collagen, so split the job: thicken the sauce properly and add crunch separately, or accept a thinner sauce.
Best for
kare-kare, dinuguan, any braise where chicharon was crushed in to thicken
Prep. For toasted rice powder, toast raw rice in a dry pan until deep brown, then grind to a fine powder and stir into the hot sauce.
Toasted rice powder is the traditional kare-kare thickener and adds a nutty roast flavour; peanut butter thickens and enriches but pushes the dish sweeter and nuttier. Neither gives you the faint gelatinous richness that dissolved pork skin does. If body is what you are missing, a piece of pork skin or a ham hock simmered in the pot for an hour is closer than any powder.

What is Chicharon?

Chicharon is pork skin that has been boiled, dried and then deep-fried until it puffs into a brittle, salty crackling, eaten as a snack across the Philippines and Latin America and crushed into dishes like sisig and kare-kare, where the melting skin also lends the sauce body.

Cooking tips

Chicharon has two completely different jobs and the right substitute depends entirely on which one your recipe wants. As a garnish it provides brittle salty crunch, and almost anything crisp will stand in. Crushed into a sauce, its collagen dissolves and gives the dish body, and nothing crisp replaces that.
Always weigh, never measure by cup. Fried pork skin is mostly air and different products puff to wildly different densities, so a cup of light American pork rinds can weigh a third of what a cup of dense Filipino chicharon does. Recipes that say a cup are guessing; two ounces by weight is a real instruction.
Add crunch at the very last second, ideally at the table. Chicharon on top of a bowl of bulalo or a sizzling sisig plate stays crisp for a couple of minutes at most, and every substitute goes soft faster than the real thing.
Soft chicharon is not ruined chicharon. Five minutes on a tray in a 350F oven drives off the moisture it has absorbed and it comes back crisp. This works on pork rinds and scratchings too.
Chicharon bulaklak is a different cut, ruffled and much fattier, and it fries into something richer and chewier than plain skin. If a recipe specifically calls for bulaklak, British-style pork scratchings are closer than airy American pork rinds.

Frequently asked questions

Are pork rinds the same as chicharon?

Essentially yes, and they swap freely. Both are pork skin that has been boiled, dried and deep-fried until it puffs. The differences are in style: American pork rinds are usually lighter, airier and more heavily seasoned, while Filipino chicharon and British pork scratchings tend to be denser and fattier. Buy the plain unflavoured version, weigh rather than measure by cup, and taste one before you add salt to the dish. The two names do pull in different cooking directions, though, which is why this guide covers the Filipino and Latin uses - snacking, sisig, kare-kare - and the pork rinds guide covers crushing them into a zero-carb breading.

What is the best substitute for chicharon as a topping?

Plain pork rinds, because they are the same thing. If you want no pork or have none, fried shallots or garlic chips give the closest crunch and a similar savoury-fatty hit, and crisp finely chopped bacon gives you the pork flavour along with the crunch though it tastes smoky. Toasted panko fried in a little fat is the cheapest option and works fine on a dry dish.

Can I just leave the chicharon out?

If it is only a garnish, yes. The dish will taste the same and simply be less interesting to eat, so add something else crisp such as fried garlic or toasted breadcrumbs if you have them. If the recipe crushes chicharon into a sauce, as some kare-kare and dinuguan recipes do, leaving it out gives you a noticeably thinner sauce, and you should thicken it another way with toasted rice powder or peanut butter.

How do I keep chicharon and its substitutes crisp?

Keep them dry and keep them away from the food until the moment of serving. Store them in a sealed bag or jar at room temperature, never the fridge, where condensation softens them. If they do soften, five minutes on a tray in a 350F oven crisps them back. Scattered on hot wet food, expect a couple of minutes of crunch at best, so serve them on the side and let people add their own.

Can I make chicharon at home?

Yes, and it is straightforward but slow. Pork skin is simmered until tender, scraped clean of fat, cut into pieces, then dried thoroughly, traditionally in the sun and now often in a low oven or dehydrator until hard and glassy. Dried pieces are then deep-fried, where they puff dramatically. The drying step is the one that cannot be rushed: skin with any moisture left in it spits violently in hot oil and does not puff properly.

Related substitutes

More meat & protein substitutes

Chicharon substitute

Other chicharon substitutes

2Crisp Fried Bacon, Finely Chopped

3Fried Shallots or Garlic Chips

4Toasted Panko or Crushed Crackers

5Chicharron de Harina (Wheat Puffs or Duros)

6Nothing, With the Sauce Thickened Another Way