Char Siu Pork (叉燒)

Char Siu Pork (Cantonese style BBQ Pork) is a classic dish you can find in Chinatown. It’s sweet and smoky and goes best with noodles or rice.

But did you know you can make this classic dish at home with just a few ingredients??

Typically you use pork shoulder to make this dish and it’s very affordable to buy at any asian grocery stores (under $4/lb usually).

The best cut of meat to use is pork shoulder, but you can also use pork loin or pork belly.

What gives the char siu the vibrant red is the red fermented bean curds and food coloring. You can skip the food coloring, but you cannot skip the fermented bean curds.

These are all the ingredients you’ll need to make this dish.

A 5 ingredient marinade recipe that has your house smelling so good!

What made this an easy marinade recipe is Bachan’s Barbecue Sauce, it has all the typical ingredients that normally goes into making char siu like soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger, tomato paste, and rice vinegar. It really saves you ALOT of time!

PREP TIME: 24 hours (includes marinate time)

COOK TIME: 30-60 mins (depending on how thick your pork is)

SERVES: 2lb pork shoulder can feed about 5-8 people.

Ingredients:

• 2 lb pork shoulder 

• 2 tbsp and 1 cube red preserved bean curd 

• 4 tbsp honey + 1-3 tbsp for basting (depends how sweet you like your pork)

• 1 tbsp hot water 

• 1.5 tbsp five spice

• 2 tbsp shaoxing wine 

• 3/4 cup Bachan’s BBQ sauce 

Directions:

1. Use a fork and poke holes in your pork, this helps to tenderize the pork

2. Combine all the sauces listed above to create your marinade recipe

3. Save about a 1/2 cup of the marinade recipe to baste later. Add more 1-2tbsp honey to your basting

4. I find using a ziplock bag the cleanest way to marinade the pork, you’ll put your pork in the ziplock bag then pour the marinade in. Massage your pork and let it marinate overnight in the fridge.

5. Add a little water on your tray before airfrying your pork.

6. Airfry at 400 for about 10-15 mins depending how thick your pork is then basting it every 5 mins, cooking it until internal temp is around 160 - 165.