Different Types of Suman in the Philippines

Suman is a pretty common snack or breakfast food here in the Philippines. There are multiple variants of this, but at its core, suman is essentially glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk and seasoned with a little sugar or salt for flavor, wrapped tightly in banana or palm leaves, and then steamed. Essentially, it’s kakanin – but with different twists found in different parts of the Philippines since different versions use different ingredients.

For today, I’ll walk you through the different types of suman variants I had the pleasure of purchasing from Antipolo (near Antipolo Church) the other day!

Ibos Suman

This is the most common form of suman, and likely the one every Filipino has probably tried. It’s also the most tasteless one, so I always dump a liberal amount of sugar when eating this. You can also dunk it in coco jam! For me, a good ibos suman would be characterized by stickiness but NOT gooeyness. It needs to remain firm enough that it doesn’t stick to the palm leaves as you unravel.

Suman sa Lihiya

This suman is more commonly found in Laguna and Cavite. It’s so-named because it adds lihiya (lye water) to the glutinous rice, which results in a more tender rice. Afterwards, it’s then wrapped in banana leaves and boiled for two hours, which lends the rice a slight greenish-brown coloring, which is unlike what you’d see with Ibos Suman.

Suman sa Lihiya is best eaten with latik or coco jam. I quite like this one, but again, still requires a generous amount of latik to add flavor to it.

Suman Pinipig

You’ll know you’re eating suman pinipig because of the distinct green hue of the suman. It’s then mixed with buko to give it more flavor. I like this one because you can eat it as is. No need to mix with anything else – just chomp down! (And it’s sweet but not overly so omnomnom)

Kurukod

Next, we have a type of cassava suman that has sweetened grated coconut filling inside. It was my first time to try kurukod the other day. In terms of firmness and texture, I quite liked it. The grated coconut filling inside was also interesting, as it added crunch and a burst of additional flavor to the suman. There was a stringiness to it that I wasn’t overly fond of though.

Suman Langka

Another famous suman is the Suman Malagkit Langka of Bulacan. This one is so good, because every bite is sweet. And there are langka bites inside too. OMG, so good!

And that’s it! I’ll add to this as I try more suman types.