Japanese Braised Sticky Pork Belly Noodles

pork belly noodles in a white bowl decorated with herbs and cucumber

Japanese Braised Sticky Pork Belly Noodles

Pork Belly Noodles are sticky, sweet, and saucy. They are so good, and while it is slow-cooked, it's hardly any hands-on time. You just have it let it cook slowly!

Prep Time30

Cook Time2 30

Total Time3

Course: Pork

Cuisine: Japanese

Servings: servings

Author: Margie Nomura

Ingredients

For the initial sear and simmer:

2.25 lb (1 kg) pork belly with the skin on
1 tbsp olive oil
2 scallions (spring onions) roughly chopped in half
1 inch ginger peeled, and roughly chopped
1/2 red chili roughly chopped
2 sticks of lemongrass roughly chopped

For the sticky sauce:

1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 clove garlic grated
1 inch ginger grated

To serve:

1 carrot julienned into thin ribbons
Egg noodles: 1 nest per person
2 sliced baby cucumbers
sprinkling of sesame seeds roughly chopped cashew nuts, sliced red chili and scallions, for garnish

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat, and once it’s nice and hot, place the whole pork belly in the pan skin-side down. Once golden, turn it over and sear on the other sides too. The idea is just to get a lovely color, but you aren’t focusing on cooking the meat at all.
Put the seared pork belly, still whole, into a heavy-bottomed pan with a lid. Cover with water and add the spring onion, ginger, lemongrass, and red chili. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer with the lid on for about 2 hours. During this time, skim off any fat that floats to the surface.
Remove the pork belly from the liquid and leave to cool enough for you to chop it up into roughly 2-inch chunks.
Mix together the oil, soy sauce, honey, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic.
Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat with a little oil, and then add your pork belly cubes. Fry for a few minutes until they have turned golden and the skin looks crispy.
Now pour the sticky sauce into the pan and cook for another 2 minutes, making sure to keep stirring as you don't want it to burn or caramelize. The pork should look gorgeously golden and sticky. Meanwhile, get your noodles on to boil, according to package instructions.
Add the julienned carrots to the noodles 1 minute before they finish cooking, and then toss the cooked noodles and carrots with a few spoons of the pork sauce to make them nice and saucy.
Serve with sliced cucumber. Sprinkle over some fresh chopped chili, some scallions, and sesame seeds.

Notes

While the cooking time for this is longer than most of my recipes, the "hands-on" time is really very minimal, and the results are so worth it. This is really very good.

Make-ahead and storage

To store: Any leftover pork can be transferred to an airtight container and kept in the fridge for up to 3 days. Noodles can also be kept for a few days in the fridge.

To freeze: You can’t freeze the noodles, but you can freeze the sticky pork belly. Freeze for up to 2 months. Then, when ready to eat, thaw overnight and reheat in a frying pan over medium-high heat with a splash of water to loosen the sauce.

Make-ahead: You could make poached pork belly the day before (much like my Slow-Cooked Beef Ragu if you want to try that too). Cube it up, then cover and leave to cool in the fridge overnight. Then continue from step 4, reheating it gently in the sticky sauce.

Nutrition