Tocino substitute

Best substitute

Home-Marinated Pork (Sweet Tocino Marinade)

Use 1 lb thin-sliced pork for every 1 lb tocino

Best for tosilog

Close match

This is what tocino actually is, and it is the answer. Per pound of pork sliced about a quarter inch thick: 1/3 cup brown sugar, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp pineapple juice or cane vinegar, 4 cloves minced garlic, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, and 1/2 tsp annatto powder if you want the familiar red colour.

Other tocino substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Chinese Char Siu Pork
Different taste
Use the same amount by weight
The closest ready-made product: sweet, red, garlicky roast pork with a sticky glazed exterior, built on the same idea of sugar caramelising on the surface of the meat.
What changes
On a plate with garlic rice and a fried egg it reads convincingly.
Best for
tosilog, rice bowls, breakfast plates, fried rice
Prep. Slice thin and warm it in a dry pan until the edges caramelise. If you are using bottled char siu sauce on plain pork, marinate 4 hours first.
Five-spice powder is the difference you will taste: star anise and cinnamon give it a warm liquorice note that Filipino tocino does not have. It is also less sour, since tocino relies on vinegar or pineapple juice for a tang that char siu lacks. A squeeze of calamansi or lime on the plate closes some of that gap.
3Ham Steak or Canadian Bacon With Brown Sugar
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight, plus 1 tbsp brown sugar per 8 oz
The fastest supermarket route to a tosilog breakfast.
What changes
It is already cured pork, already pink, already sliced, and the added sugar gives you the caramelised sticky surface that is the most recognisable thing about tocino.
Best for
tosilog, quick breakfasts, rice and egg plates
Prep. Pat dry, sprinkle with brown sugar, and fry over medium heat until the sugar melts and browns on both sides.
Add no salt at all, because cured ham is already salty and the recipe's salt would make it inedible. It is smokier, leaner and far less garlicky than tocino, and the texture is dense and uniform where tocino is fatty and yielding. Rub a crushed garlic clove over the slices before the sugar and it improves noticeably.
4Chinese Sausage (Lap Cheong)
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
Sweet cured pork with the right sugar-and-fat balance, which is the flavour logic of tocino.
What changes
If your fridge has this and nothing else, breakfast is solved.
Best for
breakfast with garlic rice, fried rice, rice bowls
Prep. Slice on a steep bias about 1/4 inch thick and fry in a dry pan until the fat runs and the edges crisp.
Completely different shape and texture: dry, firm and salami-like rather than soft slices of glazed meat, so it eats as little coins rather than something you cut with a fork. It also carries rice wine and sometimes rose wine, which give it a distinct perfume. Less fat renders out, so your garlic rice will be drier.
5Sweet Longganisa
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
Tocino and sweet longganisa sit on the same breakfast plate for a reason: both are sweet, garlicky, caramelising pork.
What changes
If a Filipino market or freezer aisle has one and not the other, take it without hesitation.
Best for
tosilog and longsilog interchangeably, breakfast plates, fried rice
Prep. Simmer in a covered pan with a little water until it evaporates, then fry in the rendered fat.
It is ground and formed rather than sliced whole muscle, so it eats crumbly and soft instead of giving you a slice with a chewy glazed edge. It is usually more garlicky and sometimes more sour than tocino. On a plate with rice and egg almost nobody would object.
6Bacon With Brown Sugar
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight, plus 2 tsp brown sugar per 8 oz
The honest least-bad option, offered because it is what many people actually have at seven in the morning.
What changes
It gets the salt, the pork fat and the caramelised sugar, which is three of the four things tocino does.
Best for
emergency tosilog, breakfast with rice and egg
Prep. Fry the bacon most of the way, pour off most of the fat, then add the sugar and turn the slices until glazed.
Smoke dominates, and there is no way around it: tocino has no smoke and bacon has a lot. There is also no garlic and no sour note. Rub the raw slices with a cut garlic clove and add a teaspoon of vinegar with the sugar, and it moves surprisingly far in the right direction, but it will still taste like candied bacon rather than tocino.

What is Tocino?

Tocino is Filipino sweet-cured breakfast pork: thin slices of pork shoulder or belly steeped in sugar, salt, garlic and something sour until they turn reddish, then fried until the sugar caramelises into a sticky glaze; what it brings to a plate of garlic rice and egg is sweetness, salt and a chewy caramelised edge.

Cooking tips

Tocino is not fried straight away. Put the slices in a pan with a third of a cup of water, cover, and let it simmer until the water is gone. That cooks the pork through gently and only then does it start to fry in its own fat and caramelise. Skip this step with a sugary marinade and the outside burns while the inside is raw.
Keep the pan at medium. The sugar in tocino is there to caramelise, and it goes from glossy to bitter in under a minute over high heat. If it is browning faster than the meat is cooking, add another splash of water and cover it again.
A homemade tocino marinade will not turn the meat bright red. That colour in commercial packs comes from nitrite and food dye. If you want it, use annatto powder or annatto oil, which is what many Filipino home cooks use and which colours without changing the flavour much.
Understand the difference between a marinade and a cure, because it matters for safety. Tocino you make at home is marinated pork that goes straight from the fridge to the pan and must be cooked through. It is not preserved, it does not keep at room temperature, and you should never guess at quantities of curing salt. If a recipe calls for curing salt, use the exact rate it specifies and no more.
Pineapple juice is worth using rather than vinegar if you have it. It brings the sourness plus enzymes that tenderise the pork, which is why the commercial versions are so soft. Do not marinate in pineapple juice much longer than 24 hours or the texture goes mealy.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best substitute for tocino?

Making it yourself, because tocino is a sweet marinade rather than a real cure. Marinate a pound of thin-sliced pork shoulder or belly in 1/3 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons pineapple juice or cane vinegar, four cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper for 8 to 24 hours in the fridge. If you need something today, Chinese char siu pork is the closest ready-made product, and a ham steak fried with brown sugar makes a workable tosilog.

Do I need curing salt to make tocino at home?

No. Home tocino is marinated pork that is refrigerated and then cooked through, not a preserved product, so there is nothing for a cure to protect against and you should not improvise with curing salts. What you give up is the bright pink colour, which comes from nitrite in the commercial packs. Use annatto powder for colour instead. If you do want to use a curing salt, follow a tested recipe and its printed rate exactly rather than estimating.

Can I use bacon instead of tocino?

As an emergency, yes, and it is what a lot of people do. Fry the bacon, pour off most of the fat, then glaze it with a couple of teaspoons of brown sugar. You get the salt, the pork fat and the caramelised sweetness. What you do not get is garlic, the sour edge from vinegar or pineapple, or the absence of smoke, and bacon's smokiness is loud. Rubbing the raw slices with garlic and adding a teaspoon of vinegar with the sugar helps.

Can I just leave the tocino out?

If it is one element of a bigger meal, yes. If you are making tosilog, tocino is one of the three things in the name, so you need something in its place, and a sweet-glazed pork of almost any kind will do the job. A ham steak with brown sugar takes four minutes and is far better than serving garlic rice and an egg on their own.

What cut of pork should I use for homemade tocino?

Pork shoulder (kasim) sliced about a quarter inch thick is the standard, because it has enough fat to stay juicy and enough connective tissue to eat tender after the covered simmer. Pork belly makes a richer, fattier version that many people prefer. Loin and chops are too lean and turn dry and stringy under a sugary glaze. Chicken thigh works well for chicken tocino; chicken breast does not.

Related substitutes

More meat & protein substitutes

Tocino substitute

Other tocino substitutes

2Chinese Char Siu Pork

3Ham Steak or Canadian Bacon With Brown Sugar

4Chinese Sausage (Lap Cheong)

5Sweet Longganisa

6Bacon With Brown Sugar