Kare-Kare (Oxtail Peanut Stew)

Kare-Kare is a celebration dish: tender oxtail (and often tripe) in a thick, nutty sauce colored gold with annatto. It is rich and mellow on its own, which is exactly why it is served with a scoop of salty bagoong (fermented shrimp paste) on the side — the two together are the whole point. It takes time, but almost all of it is hands-off simmering.

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Ingredient Notes

Oxtail is worth the cost and the wait. It is almost entirely collagen and bone, which is exactly what you want: three hours of simmering converts that collagen into gelatin, giving you meltingly tender meat and a broth with real body. That broth is not a byproduct — it becomes the sauce, so do not discard a drop of it. Beef shank or short ribs work as a cheaper substitute, though neither gives quite the same silkiness. Traditional versions add tripe, which needs its own long cleaning and boiling; leave it out if you are making this for the first time.

Peanut butter is the modern shortcut, and it is fine. The older method grinds toasted peanuts by hand, and it does taste better — deeper and less sweet. If you use commercial peanut butter, buy the unsweetened natural kind whose only ingredients are peanuts and salt. Sweetened brands will push the sauce in a candied direction that fights the bagoong.

Ground toasted rice is the real thickener, and skipping it is why home versions often come out thin or grainy. Toast raw rice in a dry pan until it is golden and smells nutty, then grind it as fine as you can. It thickens the sauce smoothly and adds a subtle toasted note that peanut butter alone does not provide. Cornstarch is not a substitute — it thickens without contributing flavor and gives the sauce a slick, gluey texture.

Annatto (atsuete) is for color, not flavor. Its job is the characteristic burnt-orange. Powder dissolved in a little broth is easiest; seeds steeped in warm oil and strained give a cleaner result. Use it with restraint — too much turns the sauce muddy and slightly bitter.

Bagoong is not optional and it is not an ingredient. The stew is deliberately mild and mellow; the salty, funky fermented shrimp paste served alongside is what completes it. Sauté it briefly in oil with a little garlic before serving to take the raw edge off.

Common Mistakes

Under-cooking the oxtail. Two hours is often not enough. The meat should pull away from the bone with almost no resistance. If it is still chewy, the collagen has not converted, and no amount of sauce will rescue the texture. A pressure cooker gets you there in about forty-five minutes if you would rather not stand over a pot all afternoon.

Throwing away the cooking broth. This is the most damaging mistake and a surprisingly common one. That liquid holds everything the oxtail released over three hours. Building the sauce with water or stock instead gives you a peanut sauce sitting next to some beef rather than a stew.

Adding bagoong to the pot. It is meant to be balanced bite by bite, on the plate, by each person. Stirred into the stew it makes the whole thing uniformly salty and destroys the contrast the dish is built around.

Letting the sauce catch on the bottom. Once the peanut butter and ground rice go in, the sauce thickens fast and scorches faster. Keep the heat moderate and stir more or less continuously. A scorched peanut sauce tastes burnt all the way through.

Overcooking the vegetables. Banana blossom, string beans, and eggplant want to keep some structure, and the bok choy should go in last and barely cook. Vegetables simmered into softness turn the dish into a uniformly beige stew, which is a shame in something this visually striking.

Variations

Beef shank or short ribs stand in for oxtail at a fraction of the price, and many households use a mix. Kare-kareng bagnet tops the stew with crisp-fried pork belly, adding crunch to a dish that is otherwise all softness. Seafood versions with prawns and mussels turn up in restaurants; they cook in minutes rather than hours, so build the sauce first from a good stock. There is a respectable vegetarian version made with eggplant, tofu, and banana blossom — though you will need a fermented bean paste to stand in for the bagoong.

Regional practice varies on whether to include tripe, how thick the sauce should be, and how heavily to lean on the annatto. For where the dish sits in Filipino celebration culture, see the Filipino Food Guide.

Serving, Storage & Make-Ahead

Serve with plenty of steamed rice and a mound of sautéed bagoong on the side of each plate, not on top. The eating rhythm is deliberate: a little stew, a little rice, a small amount of bagoong, adjusted by the eater. First-timers almost always take too much bagoong at once — mention it before they do.

This is a genuinely good make-ahead dish, which is part of why it appears at gatherings. Boil the oxtail a day or two ahead and refrigerate it in its broth; the fat rises and sets, and you can lift it off cleanly for a less greasy sauce. On the day, build the sauce and cook the vegetables fresh. The stew keeps three to four days refrigerated and freezes for two months, though as with sinigang the vegetables suffer, so freeze the meat and sauce alone.

Reheat gently with a splash of water or broth — the sauce tightens considerably when cold and needs loosening to come back to its velvety consistency.

Frequently Asked Questions

About the author

Sam is Korean, a former MBTI skeptic, and the person who built this site. Not a professional chef or a food historian — an enthusiast who cooks the dishes, does the reading, and cross-checks the history against documented Philippine culinary sources. Corrections are welcome and get made. Read the full story.