As we creep towards middle age, Bill and I try to be healthier and avoid eating too much meat. We’re no health nuts by any stretch of the imagination…we’d eat anything and everything if we didn’t have to worry about the threat of muffin tops.
There are countless times when the two of us walk into a bakery or gourmet shop for the sole purpose of just going in to look. But Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly (hong shao rou) is an exception!
So for most of our home-cooked meals these days, we try to stay pretty healthy–lots of veggies. But today, thanks to viewers like you, we’re having pork for dinner (and a vegetable, of course). We’re just giving the hungry public what they want, after all.
Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly (hong shao rou, 红烧肉), or “red cooked pork,” is a very famous dish in China. Everyone knows it, and there are many versions and twists based on the original. Some of the more well-known variations include the addition of squid (sounds odd, but boy, is it tasty), hard boiled eggs, and tofu knots (one of Sarah’s favorites. See my mother’s recipe for Hongshao Rou for this variation).
Other pork belly favorite recipes include Mei Cai Kou Rou, a famous steamed pork belly, Braised pork belly with arrowroot, a Cantonese New Year’s favorite,
And others not so similar but really good are Cantonese roast pork belly and Twice cooked pork belly.
The list goes on, but since I’m from Shanghai, I like to cook the original, un-embellished Shanghai-style version. This shanghai pork belly recipe is designed for two to three people because I’m cooking for three here, but you can certainly double and/or triple the recipe for bigger crowds. You may have to adjust the cooking time accordingly.
The ingredients are very simple: pork belly, oil, rock sugar or granulated sugar, wine, soy sauce, dark soy sauce. That’s right, just SIX ingredients. Crazy, right?
Shanghai Braised Pork Belly: Recipe Instructions
Start by cutting your pork for your Shanghai braised pork belly. Cut the pork belly into 3/4 inch thick pieces.
Then bring a pot of water to a boil. Blanch the pork for a couple minutes. This gets rid of impurities and starts the cooking process. Take the pork out of the pot and set aside.
Over low heat, add oil and sugar to your wok. Melt the sugar slightly and add the pork. Raise the heat to medium and cook until the pork is lightly browned.
Turn the heat back down to low and add Shaoxing cooking wine, regular soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and water. It’s very important to the color and flavor of this dish that you have both kinds of soy sauce! Just head to your local Asian market, buy a bottle of each, and it will last you a year!
Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes to 1 hour until pork is fork tender. Every 5-10 minutes, stir to prevent burning and add more water if it gets too dry. Once the pork is fork tender, if there is still a lot of visible liquid, uncover the wok, turn up the heat, and stir continuously until the sauce has reduced to a glistening coating.
And then, it’s time to eat! Let us know in the comments if you’re interested in any other variations of this dish, and we’ll get right on it. (not that we’re looking for another excuse to make it or anything…)
For entertaining, get one of these clay or earthen pots to serve your Shanghai Style Braised pork Belly (hong shao rou).
Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly (Hong Shao Rou)
Ingredients
- 12 ounces lean, skin-on pork belly (340g)
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 tablespoon rock sugar (rock sugar is preferred or you can use granulated sugar)
- 3 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- ½ tablespoon dark soy sauce
- 2 cups water
Instructions
- Start by cutting your pork belly into 3/4-inch thick pieces.
- Bring a pot of water to a boil. Blanch the pork belly pieces for a couple minutes. This gets rid of impurities and starts the cooking process. Take the pork out of the pot, rinse, and set aside.
- Over low heat, add the oil and sugar to your wok. Melt the sugar slightly and add the pork. Raise the heat to medium and cook until the pork is lightly browned.
- Turn the heat back down to low and add shaoxing cooking wine, regular soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and water.
- NOTE: It’s very important to the color and flavor of this dish that you have both kinds of soy sauce! Just head to your local Asian market, buy a bottle of each, and it will last you a year!
- Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes to 1 hour until pork is fork tender. Every 5-10 minutes, stir to prevent burning and add more water if it gets too dry.
- Once the pork is fork tender, if there is still a lot of visible liquid, uncover the wok, turn up the heat, and stir continuously until the sauce has reduced to a glistening coating.
This is perhaps my favourite recipe for cooking pork belly, and make it at least once a month.
I would recommend making it as above the first time or two but usually adding an extra cup of water so you can cook it slowly for 3 hours at that point the pork belly is just perfect and the skin and fat melt and jellify…
I like to experiment a bit with adding things with any recipe and so far the best additions for this I have are a teaspoon of five spice stored in when frying the pork belly along with a handful of dried xiao mi chili, this just takes away some of the sweetness of the dish.
I mostly serve mine with either jasmine rice or noodles and tenderstem brocoli (that I often grow myself) if using noodles I’d suggest stirring them through with the pork and syrupy-yummy…
Thank you for sharing your feedback, Adam. It’s good to see that you are taking this recipe into your own hand, love it :-)
I love Woks of Life recipes, Judy you are amazing, I’m a Italian boy from NYC and now I have 2 woks and a bamboo steamer, making all kinds of Asian style dishes is so much fun, keep the recipes coming
Hahaha…thank you for the image of a Chinese kitchen with an Italian boy in it :-)
Made this for dinner for me and sister tonight! Our local Asian market was out of both the Shaoxing wine and dark soy sauce : ( It was still really good though! We ate it with a side of rice and kimchi!
Yum!
Hi. How do you prevent the pork from getting dry and tough? I cooked the shanghai pork ribs the other day. Although the pork was cooked (fall off bone) but the meat was dry and tough. Thanks.
Hi Rita, the cut of pork rib is very important. You should avoid the rib tip portion, where the large slab of lean meat is really tough.
Hi! I followed the recipe exactly (except I don’t have a wok so i used a regular pan), and i was not able to get the dark-red coating on the pork belly (it looks almost the same as it did before I started simmering it, and it’s basically just bathing in the soy sauce mixture). I used Oriental Mascot cooking wine, Kikkoman soy sauce, Lee Kim Kee dark soy sauce, and regular granulated sugar. I’m eager to give this recipe another try; do you have any suggestions for my next stab at it?
Ahh i see what i did now… I used regular rice cooking wine instead of Shaoxing wine (the cooking wine i used is the pigment of a chardonnay)
Hi Nathan, if you can, get Pearl River Bridge brand soy sauces. They are better in taste and color.
Hi Judy! This looks amazing, but I cannot get pork belly at the moment. What are the best cuts of pork to substitute in place of pork belly?
Hi Emily, you can use pork butt with the skin on. See this post to help with taking apart a fresh ham.
I followed the recipe exactly. It turned out looking just as pretty as the picture in your recipe. That color! And it tasted even better than it looked. The family demands me to make it again soon. My one piece of advice to anyone wanting to make this, and many other Chinese recipes, is to use Chinese cooking wine as it is called for. There is no substitute!
Thanks for publishing this recipe. I’ll being trying some of your other recipes soon!
That’s so great, Jimmy! Hope to hear from you more as you try out more recipes :-)