Pork Belly is one of those meats that are absolutely beautiful to cook with when prepared with the right care.
Just look at bacon, who doesn’t like bacon? Preparing correctly means eliminating the natural pork flavor that is typically considered undesirable. As we discussed on our Top 5 Pork Recipes, traditional Japanese dishes use either ginger or Japanese sake to accomplish this and what is left is a cut of more neutral meat that can make some savory mouth-watering dishes!
Today’s Keto Chashu Pork Belly recipe is a great example of that and something most people probably have had and didn’t even know it – Chashu! If you’ve had Japanese ramen before, chances are it came with some slices of meat?
Well, those slices of meat are actually pork belly and called Chashu. And although ramen isn’t low-carb/keto friendly, chashu can be!!
With some simple adjustments using JOC’s excellent traditional chashu recipe, and adding some of LCA’s personal touches, we created this Keto Chashu Pork Belly dish! Hope you guys enjoy it!
This dish is super low-carb/keto with virtually 0g carbs per piece and tons of fat & flavor from the pork belly, so eat up! The dish offers a nice savory piece of pork belly that’s tender but still has some texture to it.
Flavors of sweet soy sauce, garlic, ginger and a touch of heat are all infused into the belly to present a full bodied flavor profile!
For this one, the special ingredients you would need are Japanese sake (you can replace with Dry Sherry), Soy Sauce, and Swerve/Monkfruit, all which can be purchased on Amazon or a local Asian supermarket.
Now, let’s get started!
Prepping Time 10M
Cook Time 1H15M
Total Time 1H25M
Net Carb/Serv 0g
Servings 18-22 slices
Ingredients
Directions
1) Gather all the ingredients.
2) Cut pork belly into 4 inch length by 1-2 inch thickness as shown below. Rub salt onto all sides of the pork belly and set aside.
3) Thinly slice ginger and jalapeno. Set aside.
4) Grind garlic with a grinder or a garlic press and set side.
5) In a small mixing bowl, add water, Japanese sake, Soy Sauce, Swerve/Monkfruit, sliced ginger, sliced jalapeno and grated garlic. Mix well, pour sauce into a medium sized stove top pot and place on low heat.
6) In the meantime, add cooking oil into a cast iron pan and bring to smoking temperature (to where oil lightly smokes). Note – cast iron pan gets very hot, so please where mitts if you need to handle the pan. Once up to temperature, carefully add pork belly. Sear all 4 sides for 1 minute per side. Once seared, transfer to a holding plate.
7) Now bring sauce in medium sized stove top pot from step 5) to a boil. Once boiling, add seared pork belly inside. Reduce to low heat and cook 7/8 the way covered for 1 hour. Just make sure to mix around every now and then to avoid burning the bottom.
8) In the meantime, slice green onions and set aside.
9) After 1 hour has passed, remove the cover and raise heat to medium-low. Cook for an extra 10-15 minutes to reduce the sauce. Keep an eye on this as it goes from done to burnt in 2.7 seconds flat!
10) Once most of the sauce is reduced, remove from heat. Slice pork belly long ways and transfer to serving plate. Garnish with green onions and enjoy!
Hope you enjoy your low-carb/keto Chashu Pork Belly!
If you’re looking for other recipe ideas, be sure to check out our growing Recipe Index full of Asian inspired recipes!
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Keto Chashu Pork Belly
Ingredients
- 3 lbs Pork Belly (the Costco one is about 10″ in length and weighs about 1 1/2 lb per slice)
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 2 tbsp Neutral Cooking Oil
- 1 Inch Ginger
- 1/4 Whole Jalapeno
- 1 Clove Garlic
- 2/3 Cup Water
- 1/3 Cup Japanese sake
- 1/3 Cup Soy Sauce
- 3 tbsp Swerve/Monkfruit
- 2 Stalk Green Onions
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- Cut pork belly into 4 inch length by 1-2 inch thickness as shown below. Rub salt onto all sides of the pork belly and set aside.
- Thinly slice ginger and jalapeno. Set aside.
- Grind garlic with a grinder or a garlic press and set side.
- In a small mixing bowl, add water, Japanese sake, Soy Sauce, Swerve/Monkfruit, sliced ginger, sliced jalapeno and grated garlic. Mix well, pour sauce into a medium sized stove top pot and place on low heat.
- In the meantime, add cooking oil into a cast iron pan and bring to smoking temperature (to where oil lightly smokes). Note – cast iron pan gets very hot, so please where mitts if you need to handle the pan. Once up to temperature, carefully add pork belly. Sear all 4 sides for 1 minute per side. Once seared, transfer to a holding plate.
- Now bring sauce in medium sized stove top pot from step 5) to a boil. Once boiling, add seared pork belly inside. Reduce to low heat and cook 7/8 the way covered for 1 hour. Just make sure to mix around every now and then to avoid burning the bottom.
- In the meantime, slice green onions and set aside.
- After 1 hour has passed, remove the cover and raise heat to medium-low. Cook for an extra 10-15 minutes to reduce the sauce. Keep an eye on this as it goes from done to burnt in 2.7 seconds flat!
- Once most of the sauce is reduced, remove from heat. Slice pork belly long ways and transfer to serving plate. Garnish with green onions and enjoy!
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This looks delicious. What can I use in place of Sake? I can’t find it in my area at all.
Hi Dawn! This is one of our favorite dishes to make and absolutely delish! For this recipe, you probably could replace the Japanese sake for Dry Sherry Wine. I would be more hesitant to sub sake out for sauce type recipes (i.e. teriyaki), but for this one it should be ok! Let us know if you have any other questions!