Our best pork belly recipes include addictively delicious and utterly unctuous pork belly starters, barbecue skewers, braises, curry and roasts from Asia and beyond. We’ve got recipes for Vietnamese bun cha and banh mi filled with pork belly, Cambodian beef and pork belly skewers, a spicy Northern Thai pork belly curry, Japanese slow simmered pork belly, Cambodian sweet pork belly with boiled eggs, mini Italian porchetta, and more.
If you browsed our compilation of recipes to cook in November you’d know that today, 10 November, is National Pork Belly Day, so we thought we’d share our best pork belly recipes. We’ve called Southeast Asia home since 2011, which means we’re pork lovers. Pork is the protein of choice in the region, eaten in soups and salads, stuffed in spring rolls and bitter melon, barbecued on skewers, and simmered in braises, curries and stews.
Here in Cambodia, we only have to trundle fifteen minutes into the countryside from our home in Siem Reap before we come across enormous pigs wallowing around in mud, their snouts in the family’s leftovers. I don’t think we’ve seen happier healthier-looking pigs than we have here. Whole pigs are broken down by butchers and sold at morning market stalls. Nothing is wasted, and the pork is affordable and incredibly delicious.
Which partly explains why we have so many Asian pork recipes, from salads such as this fragrant Cambodian pork larb, a ground pork salad with fresh herbs, and aromatic pork salad with yam beans and peanuts that’s full of texture and flavour, to a whole collection of char siu pork recipes, including recipes for classic char siu pork, a char siu burger with Asian slaw, a char siu pork omelette, and Hokkien noodles with char siu, and more.
Our Cambodian barbecue recipes series features even more pork recipes, including recipes for the popular breakfast pork and rice, these smoky grilled pork ribs and aromatic pork spare ribs with star anise, and one of our favourite Cambodian restaurant dishes from the legendary Sugar Palm, this char-grilled eggplant topped with savoury minced pork. But we also have European pork belly roast recipes.
Now before you scroll down to our best pork belly recipes, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by buying a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; booking a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith; or by buying something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or gifts for Asian food lovers and picnic lovers.
And don’t forget, if you’re looking for more cooking inspo, browse our recipe archives, which are heaving with many hundreds of recipes we’ve cooked, created and collected from around the world, from places we’ve lived, travelled and loved. Or browse our most popular recipes of October which were the most searched-for recipes on the site, or recipes to cook in November. Now let’s tell you about our best pork belly recipes.
Pork Belly Recipes for Bun Cha, Banh Mi, Skewers, Braises and Roasts
Our best pork belly recipes from Asia and beyond include everything from bun cha and banh mi to skewers, braises, a curry, and roasts.
Vietnamese Bun Cha Recipe with Chargrilled Pork Patties and Pork Belly
A quintessential Hanoi dish, there are few Vietnamese dishes that celebrate Vietnam’s wonderful pork and pork belly as bún chả does. Meatballs and meat patties are made right across Southeast Asia and you’ll find them in Cambodian cuisine, Thai street food and Vietnamese fare. But there’s no dish outside Vietnam like bún chả and its combination of char-grilled pork patties and pork belly.
Bún chả is one of the best Asian street food dishes and we’re not alone in thinking so. Hanoi locals, expats and visitors alike are known to become obsessed by bun cha. This is not new. As Lara discovered during her research when we lived in Hanoi, Northern Vietnamese journalist Vu Dang Bang, Vietnam’s first food writer, wrote in his book, Hanoi Delicacies, published in 1960, that Hanoi in the 1950s was a city “transfixed by bun cha.”
Born in 1913, Bang describes mobile cooks in the early 20th century carting their portable barbecues made from French biscuit tin boxes, with poles across their shoulders, into Hanoi’s Old Quarter to peddle bun cha. Bang writes how the smoky aromas lured people from their homes onto the streets for bowls of barbecued pork swimming in fish sauce, served with noodles on banana leaves, with lettuce and coriander.
Our recipe makes the style of bún chả that we used to eat for lunch a few times a week on the streets of Vietnam’s capital Hanoi (when we lived on Food Street of all addresses!). Smoky grilled pork patties and pork belly (the ‘chả’) are served in or with a warm dipping sauce, rice noodles (bún), aromatic herbs (any combo of perilla, fish leaf, basil, mint, coriander, butter lettuce, maybe sprouts), and chopped-up fried spring rolls.
Vietnamese Bun Cha Recipe for Char-Grilled Pork Patties, Pork Belly, Noodles and Herbs
Hoi An Style Banh Mi with Pork Belly, Pork Liver Pâté and Omelette
You don’t really need a banh mi recipe after you’ve made this once, but it’s worth following the first time if you want to make a banh mi that comes close to Vietnam’s best. On our first trip to Vietnam we arrived in Hoi An on the first day of the Tet Lunar New Year holiday for a few days and ended up staying a few months.
We ate banh mi almost every day, either from Bánh Mì Phuong – where the Vietnamese baguette sandwich came with home-made mayonnaise, home-made pork liver pâté, Vietnamese sausage (called chả Huế), thin slices of char siu pork belly, cucumber slices, pickled carrot and daikon strips, fresh coriander (cilantro to our American readers), spicy chilli sauce, sliced chillies, and thinly sliced tomatoes – or from Madame Khanh.
Nicknamed the ‘Banh Mi Queen’ by our friend Neville who started Hoi An’s original street food tour, Madame Khanh specialises in bahn mi op la, which is essentially a similar pork filled banh mi, but with Madame Khanh’s special sauces, and a French style omelette.
Banh Mi Op La Recipe – Hoi An Style Banh Mi with Omelette Inspired by the Banh Mi Queen
Cambodian Sweet Pork Belly with Boiled Eggs Recipe
In the same family as the Japanese slow simmered pork belly and Vietnamese braised pork belly recipes below, this recipe for Cambodian sweet pork belly with boiled eggs makes a very traditional Cambodian dish. However, as you can see from the image, below, our presentation is more contemporary style, as I made this for an array of creative Cambodian canapés that Lara and I made at home in Cambodia‘s Siem Reap one New Year’s Eve.
You could certainly make this dish and serve it in the more rustic home-cooked style. It’s another rich and comforting dish with a fascinating history and significant meaning in local Cambodian culture. The dish is often made for new mothers, to help them regain their strength, a belief that’s still held and practiced in villages in the Cambodian countryside.
In cities such as Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, this Cambodian sweet pork belly with boiled eggs dish is more of a special occasion dish, brought out for family gatherings and celebrations, such as New Year. Just as with the Japanese pork belly, this is an unctuous dish that’s addictively delicious, which I guarantee you’ll make more than once.
Sweet Pork Belly with Boiled Eggs Recipe – Traditional Cambodian Dish, Modern Presentation
Cambodian Beef and Pork Belly Skewers Recipe
This Cambodian beef and pork belly skewers recipe makes sach ko chror nouch. Different to the beef skewers marinated in the lemongrass-heavy kroeung, an aromatic Khmer herb and spice paste, which kicked off our Cambodian barbecue recipe series, they’re called ‘stuffed beef skewers’ because the beef is wrapped around pork belly or pork fat.
Whereas the beef skewers, which typically come with pickled vegetables and are served with a baguette, are best known as a street food snack here in Cambodia that are eaten in the late afternoon and early evenings, you’re more likely to come across these beef and pork belly skewers at a Cambodian wedding.
You only need to marinate these skewers in the yellow kroeung for an hour or so, as the lemongrass flavour is more subtle compared to the beef skewers, which are very herbaceous. Kroeung is a freshly pounded herb and spice paste in the same vein as curry pastes used in Thai cooking and we use a mortar and pestle, an Asian kitchen essential, to pound the paste, but you can make it in a blender.
You can grill the skewers on an outdoor barbecue or grill. Sometimes I do them over a traditional clay brazier on the balcony. But if it’s too hot I’ll use our stovetop Korean BBQ grill pan. It has a removable grill top and I place some crushed charcoal briquettes on the bottom of the pan so when the pork belly fat drips onto the charcoal it creates a little smoke. I use these coconut charcoal BBQ briquettes made from coconut shells.
Cambodian Beef and Pork Belly Skewers Recipe for Sach Ko Chror Nouch
Japanese Slow Simmered Pork Belly Recipe for Butaniku No Kakuni
Called butaniku no kakuni in Japanese, we first tried this unctuous pork belly dish at a little izakaya in Tokyo and after finishing one serve we immediately ordered another.
I’d been making a few different versions of butaniku no kakuni before Japanophile Jane Lawson, an Australian cookbook author, editor, food and travel writer, and friend sent us a copy of one of her cookbooks, Zenbu Zen – Finding Food, Culture and Balance in Kyoto which I cooked from for my Year of Asian Cookbooks project some years ago.
Richer, sweeter, with a silky texture, and deeper flavours than the recipe he’d been using, Jane’s iteration of butaniku no kakuni has since become my go-to recipe. Try it and you’ll see why.
Butaniku No Kakuni Recipe for a Japanese Slow Simmered Pork Belly Dish
Chinese Style Crispy Five-Spice Pork Belly Recipe
Five-spice or Chinese five spice is a dry spice powder mix of ground cinnamon, cloves, fennel seeds, star anise, and Sichuan pepper traditionally used for Peking Duck, as well as a rub and in marinades for other dishes, and it gives this crispy five-spice pork belly dish so much flavour.
This is one of my favourite ways to cook pork belly and I refined this pork belly recipe over a number of years. It isn’t a labour intensive dish, but the pork requires a couple of days of fridge time before final serving. After the pork belly is cooked through, the cooled-off pork goes back in the refrigerator for at least another 12 hours, weighed down to make the pork perfectly even in height.
The pork then goes back into the oven to get the skin perfectly crispy. The final result looks like it came from a Michelin-starred restaurant. It’s Cantonese in origin so usually served with some bok choy and sauce. But my favourite way to serve this as a dinner party dish is to place the pork belly on a creamy potato mash, lay some bok choy or cabbage on the side, and serve with a red wine sauce or hoisin sauce.
Five-Spice Crispy Pork Belly Recipe for a Refined Dinner Party Dish
Vietnamese Braised Pork Belly and Eggs Recipe for Thit Kho Tau
Our Vietnamese braised pork belly and eggs recipe makes thịt kho tàu, also called thịt kho hột vịt, a rich dish of sweet and salty, melt-in-the-mouth caramelised pork belly simmered slowly with boiled eggs. While this addictively delicious dish is eaten all year in Vietnam, it’s a traditional dish for Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.
This Vietnamese braised pork belly recipe makes one of our favourite Vietnamese dishes. We used to eat it whenever we had the opportunity when we lived in Vietnam. Lara tells me it was always a hit with her groups on the Vietnam culinary tours she used to host before the pandemic.
This particular version of this caramelised pork belly and eggs dish has its provenance in Southern Vietnam, as the inclusion of coconut water, palm sugar and fish sauce, an Asian pantry essential, would suggest. There is a similar dish that hails from Northern Vietnam, and you’ll also find similar braised pork and boiled eggs dishes all over Southeast Asia and China.
The Northern rendition of this braised pork belly dish, which we used to eat in Hanoi when we lived there (on Food Street!), tends to be more redolent of spices, more savoury and more aromatic, while the Southern Vietnamese pork and eggs dish is sweeter, a tad salter, and a little funkier due to that fish sauce.
Vietnamese Braised Pork Belly and Eggs Recipe for Thit Kho Tau
Cambodian Braised Pork Belly with Ginger, Pepper, Palm Sugar, Star Anise and Peanuts
This braised pork belly recipe with ginger, black pepper, palm sugar, star anise, and peanuts makes a comforting Cambodian slow-cooked pork belly dish that Cambodians simply call a pork stew or khor sach chrouk – also spelt kaw sach chrouk. ‘Stew’ in Khmer is ‘khor’ or ‘kaw’ and ‘sach chrouk’ is ‘pork meat’.
A literal translation might be ‘khor sach chrouk knhei mrech skor thnot sondek dei’, which explains why it’s just called a Cambodian pork stew. Whatever you want to call it, this comforting melt-in-the-mouth slow-cooked Cambodian pork belly recipe makes one of our favourite pork recipes, one of our best stew recipes, and one of our best recipes with nuts.
I use my Dutch Oven for this dish, which I initially bought to use to bake sourdough bread but now use for so many dishes we make. The Dutch Oven is great for this dish because of its wide bottom and even heat distribution. This means the pork gets cooked very evenly with pieces making contact with the bottom of the Dutch Oven.
The wonderful Cambodian palm sugar caramelises the pork belly and combined with the pepper, star anise and ginger gives the dish sweet floral aromas that waft through our apartment whenever we make it, while the roasted peanuts add crunch. Like our other Asian braised pork belly recipes, this is a dish that is best enjoyed with stir-fried Asian greens or morning glory and steamed rice.
Braised Pork Belly with Ginger, Pepper, Palm Sugar, Star Anise and Peanuts
Northern Thai Pork Belly Curry Recipe
Travelling across the border to Thailand, this Northern Thai pork belly curry called gaeng hang lay moo probably seems like the odd one out amongst these pork belly recipes, as it’s our only pork curry.
This recipe came courtesy of Bangkok-based Thai Chef Ian Kittichai of Issaya Siamese Club who says the richness of the pork belly makes it one of his favourite Thai curries. I call it a red curry on spice steroids.
While the spices convey the influence of India and Malaysia, the origins perhaps are closer to the northern Thai border in Myanmar, where a pork curry called wet tha hin lay includes a sour component, just as the Thai version includes tamarind. In fact many restaurants in Chiang Mai call the curry a ‘Burmese curry’. We call it wonderful.
Gaeng Hang Lay Moo Curry – Northern Thai Pork Belly Curry Recipe
Pork Roast Recipe for Spice Rubbed Pork Belly Roast Stuffed with Herbs and Spices
This pork roast recipe makes a spice rubbed roast pork belly stuffed with garlic, herbs and spices that is as rich and delicious as it looks. The slow cooked pork belly roast has a crunchy skin and moist pork belly infused with spices and herbs. It’s so rich, you wouldn’t want to eat it every weekend, but it’s perfect for a special Sunday family meal or holidays such as Christmas and Easter.
You have to start this pork roast the day before cooking it, as you need to massage your pork belly with olive oil, spices and herbs, roll it up, tie it up, and it needs to marinate overnight so it’s infused with all those wonderful flavours. Then the next day you just need to roast it and roast some vegetables with it.
This is one of Lara’s recipes and it’s inspired by a traditional Russian roast pork called buzhenina. In fact, it’s a medieval Russian pork roast recipe, dating to the 1550s. The first written reference to buzhenina is in a book called Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible.
Medieval Russians used a lot of spices back in the days, thanks to their ties with Constantinople, not to mention their Mongol Empire overlords who had previously conquered the whole of Asia and Europe. The spice mix she uses are typically used to marinate shasliks – Russian barbecued meat skewers – but feel free to adjust the spice blend to your own taste.
Pork Roast Recipe for Spice Rubbed Pork Belly Roast Stuffed with Herbs and Spices
Pork Belly Porchetta Recipe for Slow Cooked Italian Roast Pork Stuffed with Herbs
This pork belly porchetta recipe makes a mouthwatering mini porchetta, a small slow-cooked Italian style roast pork stuffed with rosemary, thyme, fennel and sage. Once reserved for celebrations, when a whole pig was deboned, layered, rolled-up and roasted, with enough to feed a village, our petite sized pork belly roast feeds six or eight, or two or four with leftovers.
If you’re looking for an easy set-and-forget pork roast for Sunday dinner, then try this pork belly porchetta recipe for a mouthwatering mini porchetta that only requires a little monitoring. Our recipe makes a pork roast that is succulent, with the same juiciness, unctuous, melt-in-the-mouth texture of other pork belly dishes that we love. It’s very rich, but it’s a nice treat for a special meal, and you could eat the leftovers with salad to lighten it up.
It’s perfect for an Italian style feast. Kick off the meal with plenty of crusty bread and bowls of a hearty Italian soup, such as this classic Tuscan ribollita (a fantastic way to use stale bread) or Italian wedding soup, or a lighter spring vegetable soup such as a green minestrone. And serve with a big panzanella salad or lots of veggies and a big bowl of creamy mashed potatoes to share.
Pork Belly Porchetta Recipe for Slow Cooked Italian Roast Pork Stuffed with Herbs
Please do let us know if you make any of our best pork belly recipes as we’d love to know how they turn out for you.
