And if dumplings aren’t your thing, the flavorful fried rice will make the perfect Asian side dish to accompany your main meal. Plus, each of these scrumptious Chinese pork recipes is so easy to make you can have a whole family feast ready in no time! So put the phone down and roll up your sleeves because it’s all about home cooking tonight.
1. Shredded Pork Stir-Fry With Sweet Bean Sauce
I’m a massive fan of juicy Asian chicken recipes because they’re usually inexpensive and loaded with flavor. But you can’t get the same incredible crispy texture with chicken, which is why this pork dish is always at the top of my list! The trick is to pre-cook the pork and remove it from the pan while getting everything else ready. Then, add the meat back in until everything is perfectly crisp.
2. Char Siu (叉燒) – Chinese BBQ Pork
BBQ pork is a thing of beauty, and it’s easier than you think to recreate at home. As with any decent BBQ recipe, this dish is all about the rub! Between the cinnamon, fennel seeds, star anise, cloves, and peppers, this is the ideal balance of sweet and spicy. The pork needs to marinate for at least 6 hours, so you’ll need to start this around noon if you want it for dinner.
3. The Best Slow Cooker Chinese Pork
If you want a tender pork dinner without the fuss, this slow cooker Chinese dish is for you. Just pop the pork in the crockpot and cover it with plenty of sliced onions. From there, you’ll add a heavenly blend of ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger. Let that simmer for a few hours and maybe use all that free time to make one of these sensational Chinese dessert recipes!
4. Hunan Pork Stir-Fry (湖南小炒肉)
If you’ve ever seen pork belly in the supermarket but aren’t sure what to do with it, I highly recommend this easy and delicious stir-fry. Pork belly might look super fatty (and it is!), but it’s that fat that makes it so delicious. It adds a ton of flavor, and when you cook it right, it melts into the meat and turns crispy on the edges. If you can’t find fermented black beans, I suggest using regular canned black beans instead. Just be sure to rinse them off first.
5. Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly (Hong Shao Rou)
If you only make one of these Chinese pork recipes, please let this be it. Just look at that incredible color! Again, the trick here is to pre-cook the pork. In this recipe, it needs a few minutes in a pot of water. Then, you’ll drain it and cook in the sauce for around an hour. During that time, all you need to do is stir every 10 minutes or so. How easy is that?
6. Peking Pork Chops (京都排骨)
No doubt you’ve heard of (and likely eaten) Peking duck. It’s crispy, loaded with incredible flavor, and best served in little pancakes with thinly sliced spring onions. This pork recipe is just as tasty, using a similar sweet and sticky glaze. It needs just 30 minutes to marinate and then a quick flash in the wok (about 5 minutes).
7. Honey Garlic Pork Chops
You’ve likely noticed that texture is a huge element in many of these Chinese pork meals. Rather than thick cuts of meat, they prefer to pound it thin and make it crispy. That’s probably why I love this type of cooking so much! Not only does it mean the meat cooks faster, but there’s no chance of it coming out tough. Instead, after a few minutes in hot oil, it’s crispy on the outside and tender in the middle.
8. Pork Fried Rice
This is a quick and easy pork recipe you’ll want to make on a busy weeknight or as a late-night snack. And remember that incredible char siu from above? This is how you can use up any leftovers! Not only that, but fried rice is best with leftover rice, too, making it a terrific way to save on food waste. I almost always have cooked rice in the fridge, so I can make this whenever to mood strikes.
9. Moo Shu Pork (木须肉)
A quick scan of this recipe and the ingredient list might make you nervous. Dried wood ear fungus? It’s a type of mushroom that’s deeply rooted in this authentic Chinese recipe. You can find them online or, if you’d prefer, use another mushroom, like enoki, oyster, or shiitake. Once you have the mushrooms sorted, you’ll slice the pork nice and thin and coat it in a cornstarch slurry to ensure it crisps up.
10. Braised Pork Belly Dong Po Rou
Here’s another fantastic pork belly recipe you’ll need to try. Only this time, it’s not chopped up into small pieces. Instead, it’s blanched, simmered, and steamed to perfection. Although this recipe takes a little longer to make than most of the others (around four hours in total!) I think you’ll agree it’s worth the added time. Plus, most of that is cooking time, during which you can leave it alone.
11. Sticky Chinese Pork Belly
Pork belly clearly holds a special place at the heart of Chinese cooking. That’s why you’ll see it so often, both on this list of Chinese pork recipes and at authentic Chinese restaurants. And I promise that once you start cooking with it, you’ll come back to it again and again. Unlike the recipe above, where you need to cook the meat for two 90-minute stints, this one leaves it to the slow cooker to perfect. After a couple of hours, it’s ready to slice and fry.
12. Cantonese Roast Pork Belly
Growing up, whenever we had pork for Sunday dinner, there would always be a fight for the crackling. You know, that crispy layer of pork skin on the top? It’s crazy-delicious and worth risking your fingers for. But with this recipe, everyone gets their fair share. You’ll need to poke holes all over the top and be sure to let it sit in the fridge to dry out before cooking.
13. Cantonese-Style Zongzi (Rice Dumplings)
One of my all-time favorite Mexican recipes has to be tamales. Though they’ll take a little longer to prep, it’s more than worth it in the end. So you can imagine how excited I was to see these Chinese tamales! These are wrapped in leaves rather than corn husks, and they use rice instead of masa, but the premise is the same. Filled with crispy pork belly, salted egg yolks, and crunchy peanuts, these are unique and beyond irresistible.
14. Pork and Chive Dumplings
I know you can find plenty of yummy frozen dumplings in the store, but there’s something super satisfying about making your own. This ground pork recipe is the perfect place to start. It’s pretty simple, and the ingredient list is nice and short. All you need is ground pork, chives, rice wine, white pepper, sesame oil, and black vinegar. Make these part of your Chinese New Year feast, and watch them fly off the plate!
15. Sweet Ginger Pork Stir-Fry (Keto, WHOLE30, Easy)
If you’re craving homemade takeout, it doesn’t get much better than this healthy and fast ginger pork stir fry. It needs just four ingredients and less than 5 minutes in the hot pan. I find the pork and peppers are more than enough for a light dinner, but you could always add a big scoop of pork fried rice on the side, too, if you want something more filling. Also, don’t feel like you need to stick to just green peppers. If you have some asparagus or cauliflower that needs eating, go ahead and throw it in the pot, too. Click on a star to rate it!
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