Halo-Halo Dessert Recipe - The Spruce Eats

• Halo-halo brings together sweet beans, tropical fruit, and shaved ice for a textural treat.
• Topping this dessert with ube ice cream and Cap'n Crunch adds a creamy and crunchy twist.
• You can find nearly all the ingredients canned or jarred at Asian markets or online shops.

It was many years ago when you stole my cool, you had me at Halo-Halo...

This unofficial national dessert of the Philippines is like an icy tutti-frutti on steroids, and one of my personal favorite summertime desserts. Literally translated as "mix-mix" in Tagalog, halo-halo typically combines layers of sweetened chickpeas, red and/or white mung beans, candied palm seeds, macapuno (coconut sport) strips, jackfruit, saba bananas in syrup, coconut jellies, tapioca pearls, sweet potato cubes, and of course shaved ice. It then gets drizzled with a healthy dose of evaporated milk, and sometimes topped with a scoop of ube ice cream and flan.

A kaleidoscope in a glass, the refreshing halo-halo has just as many flavors and textures as it does colors. Each component complements the other with savory and sweet notes woven together with soft, crunchy, and creamy textures and invigorating microchips of ice.

The original iteration stemmed from Japanese settlers in the Philippines in the late 1800s when they introduced kakigori, a shaved ice dessert with adzuki beans and condensed milk. In 1902, when the Americans built the Insular Ice Plant in Manila, Filipinos had unlimited access to ice. They swapped out adzuki beans for mung beans and chickpeas, and eventually added a bounty of other local ingredients creating the modern-day version of Halo-Halo.

Halo-halo is one of the easiest desserts you can make since the only thing you will need to prep is the shaved ice. The rest of the ingredients can be found in the canned fruit aisle of your favorite Asian market or your preferred online marketplace. I recommend using an ice shaver machine, but if you don't have one you can use a high-quality blender or food processor.

Korean Shaved Ice Recipe

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