This red-braised pulled pork has all the delicious flavor of a traditional Chinese red braised or hóngshāo pork belly, but it’s much easier to make. Here, we’re using accessible pork shoulder or pork butt rather than pork belly, and braise it in the oven. No wok. Less time at the stove. And you can easily make large quantities for meal prep or a party!
Simplifying Hongshao Rou
Red braised pork, or hóngshāo ròu (红烧肉), is a classic Chinese dish, and one that is much beloved across China and the diaspora. The “red braising” refers to cooking the meat in a mixture of soy sauce, rice wine, and sugar that reduces down into a rich, sweet, amber-colored sauce.
The dish is normally made with skin-on pork belly, and we have a couple versions, including my mom’s ever-popular Shanghai Braised Pork Belly as well as the Hunan version, commonly known in China as Chairman Mao’s Red Braised Pork.
These dishes are simple enough to make, but do require some attention at the stove.
In this recipe, there is no need to blanch the pork before searing. Once browned, you can put all the ingredients in a pot and throw it in the oven to braise.
This makes it really easy to make a huge batch for meals during the week, or if you’re entertaining a lot of people. (You’re not as limited by the size of your wok.)
The meat cooks until it’s pull-apart tender, but because you braise it in the oven uncovered, you also get these craggy bits of caramelized meat reminiscent of carnitas. (In fact, I used my carnitas recipe as a basis for the cooking method here.)
The meat also freezes great, so you can make a larger batch and then save some for later.
Using A More Affordable, Widely Available Cut of Pork
We know some folks have trouble finding pork belly (let alone skin-on pork belly) at their local grocery stores, depending on where they live.
Where it IS more accessible, we’ve found that the popularity and cost of pork belly has exploded! Restaurants and home cooks alike are chomping at the bit to crisp, roast, and fry some pork belly. Around here, it’s available at our local ShopRite and Costco, and while it used to be relatively cheap—and only sold at our Chinese grocery store—it’s now an expensive and trendy cut of meat.
Pork shoulder, on the other hand, is one of the cheapest cuts you can get, making this version more economical. It’s also one of the few cuts that you can find in a regular supermarket that still has the skin on.
You can get a bone-in “picnic shoulder,” which is generally the lower part of the shoulder cut and often comes with the skin still on it, or a bone-in or boneless pork butt, which is the upper part of the shoulder. Both cuts are well-marbled, and very well-suited to this recipe!
Ways to Serve
This red braised pulled pork is super versatile, and you can use the meat in so many different ways. The simplest is to serve it over rice with a veggie. You can do the same thing with noodles as well.
Note on serving with noodles!
We’ve found that when serving braised pork with noodles, the sweetness of the sauce is a bit less balanced. We like to add chili oil to offset that sweetness, and it’s delicious! With rice, skip the chili.
Or make a frozen scallion pancake, and roll this meat up into the center with some chopped fresh scallions!
You could even make something called bao er fan. It’s a preparation my mom saw on a Chinese Drama called 尚食, or Royal Feast. It takes place during the Ming Dynasty and features many fun food scenes!
My mom (Judy to all of you) watches these shows on her iPad while she’s preparing dinner every night, and she saw this preparation of saucy braised pork mixed with rice, served on a lettuce leaf as a grab-and-go meal for soldiers. We’re unsure whether this was a real Ming Dynasty era food, but my mom assures me that the showrunners did their research!
In any case, we recreated it, and it was indeed a tasty (and portable) method of eating this pulled pork!
You don’t need a lot of this pork to make a satisfying meal, so make sure to serve it with your favorite sautéed veggies, like our garlicky broccoli, stir-fried bok choy, or everyday vegetable stir-fry. Check out all our Vegetable Recipes for more ideas!
As a now busy mom (WHAT IS TIME AND WHERE HAS IT GONE) who can’t really fathom the idea of preparing traditional hongshao rou on a weeknight like she used to, I will be wielding this recipe often!
I have a batch sitting in my freezer as we speak, ready to mix into rice on one of those nights when dinner feels like an uphill battle.
Let’s talk about how to make it.
Red Braised Pulled Pork: Recipe Instructions
Make sure to cut your pork into large pieces about 4-inches or 10 cm across, as they will shrink quite a bit during cooking.
Arrange a rack in the center of your oven, and preheat to 375°F/190°C. In a large Dutch oven or other cast iron pot, heat the oil over medium high heat. Brown the pork in batches (don’t crowd the pot), until it’s browned on all sides.
Add all the pork back to the Dutch oven, along with the Shaoxing wine, sugar, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, bay leaves, star anise, and water. Stir.
Cover and bring to a boil on the stove. Once boiling, place the Dutch oven into the oven uncovered. Cook for 2½ hours, checking the pork every 45 minutes or so (stir and add more water if the pot starts drying out), until the pork is tender and falling apart.
Use two forks to pull the meat apart…
And serve with rice, noodles, a scallion pancake, or however you like!
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Recipe
Red Braised Pulled Pork
Ingredients
- 4½ pounds boneless pork shoulder (cut into large 4-inch/10cm chunks and trimmed of excess fat; keep the skin if you can get it!)
- 2 tablespoons neutral oil (such as vegetable, canola, or avocado oil)
- ¾ cup Shaoxing wine
- ⅓ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 star anise
- 3 cups water
Instructions
- Arrange a rack in the center of your oven, and preheat to 375°F/190°C. In a large Dutch oven or other cast iron pot, heat the oil over medium high heat. Brown the pork in batches (don’t crowd the pot), until it’s browned on all sides.
- Add all the pork back to the Dutch oven, along with the Shaoxing wine, sugar, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, bay leaves, star anise, and water. Stir.
- Cover and bring to a boil on the stove. Once boiling, place the Dutch oven into the oven uncovered. Cook for 2½ hours, checking the pork every 45 minutes or so (stir and add more water if the pot starts drying out), until the pork is tender and falling apart.
