Cha Shao Bao is a Southern Chinese soy sauce marinated pork dish. It is extremely tasty and takes 2 days to make. The deliciously sweet and savory treat is definitely worth your effort!
As always, click "ingredients" to get an Amazon shopping list of most of the ingredients in this recipe in case you don't have any!
- 3 pounds of pork (belly or shoulder/butt/picnic)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 0.5 teaspoons 5 spice powder
- 1.25 teaspoons paprika (or cayenne)
- 1 tablespoon alcohol (Sweet, not super strong wine like mirin, sake, or mead or liquors)
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons hoisin sauce
- 2 teaspoons tomato paste
- 1.25 tablespoon sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 3 cloves minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon water
- 10 drops of red food coloring
- 1 pinch of sodium nitrate doped salt (for the color)
Protocol:
- Take the pork belly or shoulder and cut it up into long strips. It should be approximately 1x1x9 inches in length.
- Mix all of the ingredients together in a big bowl and coat the pork belly generously with all of the seasonings.
- Carefully wrap the bowl with plastic wrap and let marinate in the refrigerator for 2-18 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 425 F
- Take the pork out and lay on a baking tray and rack making sure to keep 1-2 inches between your pork pieces.
- Reserve all of the leftover marinade.
- Generously coat the pork with the marinade and put it into the oven.
- After 20 minutes, take the pork out, flip all of the pieces over and then brush again with the marinade
- After another 20 minutes, take the pork out again, flip once more and brush again with the marinade.
- Wait for 15-20 minutes, the pork should be very dark.
- Flip one last time and turn on the broiler to crisp up the pork.
- Take out, rest for 10-15 minutes and enjoy with rice or Chinese buns!
Things to think about:
- You can substitute brown sugar for regular sugar/honey
- The red food coloring really adds a lot to how this looks, you really have to add it for the whole experience. (same goes for the curing salts)
- Make sure to use a baking tray, the convection underneath the pork allows for more even cooking
- The pork belly is extremely fatty (it's the part that makes bacon), it's not for everyone. Use a pork shoulder (often called pork butt (don't ask me why) or a Picnic) instead, just make sure to cut with the muscle grain instead of into perfect strips.
- You can make your own 5 spice powder! But it's hard, just buy the mix. And it's definitely required.
- I'm not quite sure the tomato paste does anything but I put it in for good luck and it seems to work out for me.
- If you use an instant pot, and you put in like 5 cups of rice after the first turning of the pork, it finishes by the time the pork is done and you can eat everything at the same time. It's great.
- Put sesame seeds onto it for Authentic Chinese Flavor. The green onions make it so much better too.
- I always find that I need to put on more salt after. But that's probably because I'm a salt fiend and I need too much salt. Add more if you need more afterwards.