Confit Pork Belly (3 Day Method)

The ultimate twice cooked pork belly with tender meat and the crispiest crackling! The secret to making restaurant style pork belly at home is all in the 3 day process.

If you want to make pork belly with melt in your mouth tender meat, loads of flavour and the perfect crackling, look no further than this recipe! We’re cooking this pork belly confit, which means to slow cook in fat. There’s an overnight cure involved too, to add flavour to the meat. Plus a handy restaurant technique where you press the cooked pork belly in the fridge, to compress the meat into a uniform shape before roasting the next day, to perfectly crisp up the skin.

Now this whole process does take 3 days but there’s really not that much work involved and most of this time is hands off. The combination of curing, confit, pressing and roasting ensures that you’ll get tender, flavourful meat and perfectly crisp skin every single time. Confit pork belly is a fantastic dish to prepare ahead of time when you’re serving a crowd, say at Christmas, Thanksgiving or a Sunday roast. And it goes great with pretty much any side dish.

For more dinner inspiration check our our ever growing collection of main course recipes! There’s lots to choose from here, from homemade pies, slow cooked meat, barbecue, pasta dishes & more. And for a side to serve with this pork, take a look at our side dish recipes.

Ingredients For Confit Pork Belly

• Pork Belly – To make confit pork belly, you’ll need a boneless pork belly with the skin on. I used a 3kg pork belly which will easily serve 10 people but this method will work with any size belly.
• Fat – Lard is pork fat, so it makes sense to cook our pork belly in it! I used a mix of lard and vegetable oil. You’ll need enough fat to completely submerge the pork belly and you could even use goose or duck fat instead. Any confit fat you have leftover can be used to cook more pork belly or for roast potatoes.
• Salt Cure – Classic confit involves curing the meat before cooking, which is what we’re doing in this recipe as well. I use a 1.5% salt cure for pork belly and I flavour mine with fennel seeds, black pepper, garlic, lemon & orange, taking inspiration from an Italian porchetta. You can flavour yours however you like though.

How To Make Confit Pork Belly (3 Day Method)

This confit pork belly uses a 3 day process, to make it as tender and flavourful as possible with perfectly crisp crackling. This isn’t a recipe you can rush but the results really do speak for themselves.

First, you cure the pork overnight. The next day you confit the belly until the meat is perfectly tender before pressing overnight in the fridge. Then to serve, you roast the pork at a high temperature until the skin is crisp.

Day 1 – Curing The Pork

I cure my pork belly in a 1.5% salt cure which I flavour with toasted fennel seeds, black pepper, a load of garlic and some lemon & orange zest. The percentage refers to the amount of salt used in comparison to the weight of the pork (1.5% of the weight in grams). I used a 3kg pork belly, which means the cure uses 45 grams of sea salt. If you’re using a different size pork belly, calculate the weight of the meat by 0.015 to work out how much salt you’ll need.

To make the cure, toast fennel seeds until fragrant then crush coarsely in a pestle and mortar, along with some black peppercorns. To this, add sea salt, grated garlic and the zest from a lemon & an orange then stir to combine.

To cure your pork belly, lay it skin side down on a double layer of clingfilm then sprinkle the salt mix over the top and sides of the meat (not the skin!). Wrap the belly up tightly in the clingfilm then place into the fridge (skin side down) and chill for 24 hours.

Day 2 – Slow Cook In Fat (Confit)

To confit means to slowly cook something in fat. In this case, a pork belly that we’re cooking in a mix of lard (pork fat) and vegetable oil. Though you could use goose fat or duck fat instead, though this would be considerably more expensive!

1. Rinsing Off The Cure

Before cooking the pork, you’ll need to rinse the excess cure off the meat under cold water then dry well with kitchen paper. If you’ve got the time, I like set the pork onto a baking tray lined with kitchen paper then leave it uncovered in the fridge for an hour, so it can dry fully.

2. To Confit

To confit the pork, place it skin side up into a deep roasting tin then cover with melted lard and enough vegetable oil to fully submerge it in fat. Lay a piece of baking parchment over the pork, cover the tin tightly with foil then cook in a 100°c/212°f oven for 6-8 hours, until tender. You’ll know when the pork is tender, when a food probe (or skewer) slides into the meat with no resistance. Like butter!

3. Pressing

A trick I picked up from working in a restaurant is to press the pork belly overnight do that it sets in a perfectly flat, even slab. To do this, you let the pork drain over a wire rack to remove the excess confit fat then wrap it up tightly in clingfilm. Then you place the belly onto a baking tray, place another tray on top then weigh the top tray down with something heavy. I used 8kg of gym weights but anything heavy will work!

Then it’s just a case of chilling the pork belly in the fridge overnight so that it can set. Make sure to arrange the weights so the tray sits flat on top of the pork, so it compresses it evenly.

Day 3 – Roast To Crisp Up Skin

The last step of this 3 day process is to roast the pork, to reheat and to crisp up the skin to make crackling. I like to lightly trim the edges to square up the belly, before cutting into portions, scoring & seasoning the skin and roasting in the oven. There’s several ways to cut the meat before roasting, which we’ll dive into next.

How To Roast Confit Pork Belly (Perfect Crackling)

It’s even easier to get crispy crackling when working with confit pork belly than with a regular roasted pork joint. As the meat is already cooked, it’s just a case of roasting it at a high heat to crisp up the skin and warm the pork through.

One handy trick is to score the skin then rub in a drizzle of veg oil and season with sea salt before roasting. You score the skin in a cross hatch pattern or in horizontal lines.

1. First, cut your pork belly into chunks or leave it as a large piece.
2. Using a sharp knife, score the skin making sure to only cut the skin not the meat underneath. Place the pork onto a rack set inside a roasting tin.
3. Coat the skin in a light layer of vegetable oil, rubbing it in with your hands then season the skin well with sea salt.
4. Roast the pork at 220°c/428°f for 20-25 minutes, until the skin is crisp all over and the meat is warmed through. The meat should have an internal temperature of at least 75°c/167°f once reheated.

Serving Suggestions

Confit pork belly is incredibly versatile and as we’ve cook a slab of pork belly, you can cut it into pretty much whatever size you like. My favourite way is to roast generous chunks until crispy then serve alongside creamy mashed potato, apple sauce and either gravy or mustard sauce. I’d highly recommend trying my creme fraiche mashed potato with this pork belly!

Some other great ways to serve confit pork belly would be to roast a large piece to crisp up the skin then slice and serve in sandwiches. Or you could cut the belly into cubes, trim off the skin and use it to make pork belly burnt ends. Or even serve cubes of pork on skewers and glaze with teriyaki. Anything you can think of really!

Tips And Tricks

• Cure the pork belly before cooking, to season the meat, add flavour and to keep the meat moist & juicy as it cooks.
• Use a boneless pork belly, as it will take less time to cook and the meat will be a more even thickness once pressed.
• For extra flavour, confit the pork in a mix of lard and oil. You could use duck fat or goose fat too!
• Cook the pork belly at a low temperature until a food probe slides into the meat with no resistance. This is the secret to cooking super tender belly pork.
• Press the pork belly as it cools, to make the meat an even thickness and the skin perfectly flat. You get perfectly crispy skin all over this way.
• To reheat, roast the confit pork at a high temperature to crisp up the skin!

Frequently Asked Questions

More Dinner Recipes To Try

• Sticky Toffee Glazed Ham
• Classic Confit Duck Legs
• Hoisin Honey Fried Chicken Drumsticks
• Honey Roast Ham, Egg & Chips
• Smoked Beef Short Rib, Guinness & Bone Marrow Pie
• Beef Burritos

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