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Chinese Roast Pork Recipe
In my cookbook “Easy Chinese Recipes,” I have a Chinese roast pork belly recipe, or siu yuk.
When it comes to Chinese roast pork, one could never have enough of the crispy skinned roasted pork belly. It’s sinfully delicious!
This Chinese Roast Pork recipe is from my good friend Robert Danhi’s Facebook page. Robert and his wife made the roast pork following a recipe gathered from a church in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
This is the PERFECT recipe for Chinese roast pork belly! It’s absolutely mouthwatering.
The recipe is easy, hassle-free and fail-proof. I guarantee you crispy, crunchy, absolutely aromatic and to-die-for pork crackling, melt-in-your-mouth pork belly.
Recipe Ingredients
This simple recipe calls for only four (4) ingredients:
- Pork belly
- Garlic
- Salt
- Chinese five spice powder
How to Make Chinese Roasted Pork Belly?
This is the easiest and best recipe you’ll find online. There is no need to poke the pork skin, there is no no vinegar in the recipe.
There is also no need to par-boil the pork belly before roasting.
The recipe calls for simple and few steps. Please refer to the video embedded on this page to learn how to make Chinatown worthy siu yuk at home.
The end result is very crispy pork crackling. The pork belly is also juicy, tender, with the melt-in-your-mouth pork fat.
The taste is a bit salty and aromatic. The aroma comes from the garlic and five-spice powder.
How Many Calories per Serving?
This recipe is only 446 calories per serving.
What to Serve with This Recipe?
Serve this dish with rice or noodles. For a Chinese meal and easy weeknight dinner, I recommend the following recipes.
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Chinese Roast Pork Belly
Ingredients
- 2 lbs. pork belly
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon five spice powder
- Kosher salt (for layering)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C), arrange a pan on the bottom 1/3 of oven rack and fill with water. The pork belly should be roasted using the rack above it.
- Wash and use paper towels to dry the pork belly.
- Make some horizontal slits on the sides of the belly, then rub the meat side with the five spice powder.
- Insert each garlic and push them deep inside the pork belly.
- Layer the top of the pork belly with the salt evenly.
- Place the pork belly on a wire rack. This is how it should look before going into the oven.
- Place the pork belly at the top 1/3 of the oven and roast for 1 hour. While baking, the oil will drip to the bottom pan with water.
- Bake until the salt crust forms, the salt should be hardened. Check water in the pan below and add if needed. This is how the pork belly and salt crust will look like in the oven. You have to insert the garlic deep inside the horizontal slits or else they will be pushed out during the roasting process.
- Remove the pork belly from the oven, pull off the salt crust and discard.
- Raise the heat of oven to 465°F (240°C), place the pork belly back in the oven and roast for another 40 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let set for 10 minutes.
- Cut and serve immediately with some chili sauce and hoisin sauce, or eat as is.
Notes
Nutrition
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated, using Spoonacular, for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
…very nice.
I just tried ur recipe last night. It was wonderful. Skin was so crispy. Looks exactly like yours. So much easier than other recipe. Thx for sharing
Thanks for trying this Chinese roast pork recipe.
Hi Rasa, What temperature for the initial hour?
Hi, how long does it take for your salt crust to form if cooking a 2lb pork belly.
Hi, I tried this recipe and it turned out so wonderfully delicious, however the second time, the salt crust separated from the pork skin during baking and some parts didn’t turn out crispy, would you know how I can make sure the salt stays on the skin? Thank you! Btw, I have dried many of your recipes and I love them!
Make sure you press the salt on the skin so it sticks.
I made this yesterday. The skin was tasty and crispy. However, the pork was so bland and tasteless even with the 5 spices. Will not make this again.
Did you use enough salt? The pork is not supposed to have a lot of taste, that’s why you dip with Hoisin sauce.
I have a query.. As my traditional oven setting is to lit up the fire from either the bottom or the top part of the oven, I cannot turn on both the top and the bottom part of the oven at the same time. Does it matter? Should I just use the normal (fire from bottom rack)? Thanks!
You can try. But you want your skin to bubble though. Sorry not familiar with your oven.
Very simple recipe to follow and the first try i got the skin crispy and meat moist! Kids and hubby love it! Thank you!
Thanks Betty for trying out my Chinese roast pork recipe.
Thank you so much! My roast pork turned out so amazing!! I used different spices (because I didn’t have five spice and the groceries weren’t open) but your methodology was perfect! Going to recommend this to all my friends! And invite people over for dinner more open?
Awesome, thanks for trying my Chinese roast pork recipe.
I know I’m cheap skate but I’m Chinese after all Just wondering have you any recipes or suggestions for the salt crust besides putting it in the bin. Many thanks
You can’t use the salt crust plus salt is pretty cheap. ;)
I break mine up and use it to kill weeds, just don’t put it anywhere you want plants to grow.