Really Crispy Chinese Five Spice Roast Pork Siu Yuk

Updated: May 2026

Crispy Chinese Roast Pork Belly is a crowd pleaser. You will find these large slabs of crispy roast pork in the windows of restaurants in Chinatown, usually hanging next to some roast ducks.

It is one of those uncomplicated recipes that you can make at home.

Tip: For the best tasting roast pork, try and source a good piece of free-range pork belly from your local butcher. I like to get free-range rare breed meat as they have a lot more flavour and you will end up with a delicious dish.

Roast pork belly is a regular offering at temples for every religious occasion in Malaysia and most of Southeast Asia. Big slabs of slow-roasted pork belly or even whole roasted pigs adorn the altar tables in homes and businesses on religious holidays. After the offerings to the gods, the roast pork is then served at a family banquet.

How to make Cantonese-style roast pork belly or Siu Yuk

This is a great, foolproof recipe for really crispy Chinese Roast Pork. If you see it in a restaurant, don’t confuse it with the other common roast pork, the sweet and sticky Char Siu. That is quite different, strips of pork loin, marinated in a sweet sauce and roasted.

It is quite common to see both types of roast pork sold together. In Chinatown, one of the most popular dishes to order is a combination of crispy roast pork and char siu served over rice. if you want to be extra fancy, add a portion of roast duck to that to make it the three-roast-meat rice.

You only need a few ingredients for this recipe, a piece of quality skin on pork belly, sea salt and five spice powder. This recipe uses very distinct Chinese flavours like the fragrant five-spice powder that creates the most heavenly aromas as it roasts. Leaving this out just makes it like any other roast pork.

Note: You need to start at least a day before to ensure you get the most crispy skin.

Wash and scrape the skin until clean. Use a sharp fork, a bunch of toothpicks or even the tip of a sharp knife and pierce the skin all over. (Chinese supermarkets sell something that looks like a torture instrument with nails for this purpose.) This helps render the fat under the skin while roasting. An even piercing will also result in nice, even bubbles across the skin and not large blisters when roasting.

Season with a good quality sea salt and five-spice powder on the meat side. Leave in the fridge, uncovered for one day to dry out the skin.

Crispy roast pork recipe - season with salt and five spice powder — season with salt and five spice powder

Cut incisions on the skin side to help the meat cook internally and as a guide for cutting later

Crispy roast pork 5 — I didn’t pierce the skin evenly before roasting, resulting in this big blister

Roast in a hot oven for 1 1/2 hours. After an hour, remove and brush vinegar on the skin side and turn on the grill in the oven as well. Watch out for smoke at this point.

After roasting and resting, cut it into bite sized pieces, use a Chinese cleaver for the best results.

Crispy roast belly pork — Rest the meat for at least 30 minutes before cutting and serving

Crispy roast pork 9 — Use a Chinese cleaver to cut the meat without shattering the skin

I used a chef’s knife to cut this from the meat side, which resulted in shattered, uneven pieces of skin, not the best for presentation. Serve this on top of rice or as a dish in a multi dish family style meal.

Other dishes you can make to go with this for a Chinese family meal:

This will make a great Sunday lunch recipe too but be aware that you have to start a few days earlier. This recipe takes a bit of time but with very little effort, you end up with a perfectly roasted belly of pork with crispy crackling and meltingly tender pork.

Chinese Roast Crispy Pork

Chinese crispy roast pork or siu yoke is one of the favourite roast meats from Chinese restaurants. It is surprisingly easy to make at home.

Course Main

Cuisine Chinese

Prep Time 1 10

Cook Time 1 30

Total Time 1 1 40

Servings 4 portions

Calories 550kcal

Ingredients

1.5 kg A piece of skin on belly pork about 1kg to 1.5kg – size to suit number of servings.
2 tbsp Sea Salt
5 tsp five spice powder to taste
white vinegar for the skin

Instructions

Prepare the pork belly a day before roasting

Wash and scrape the skin until clean. Use a sharp fork, a bunch of toothpicks or even the tip of a sharp knife and pierce the skin all over. (Chinese supermarkets sell something that looks like a torture insturment with nails for this purpose). This helps render the fat under the skin while roasting. An even piercing will also result in nice even bubbles across the skin and not large blisters when roasting.
Pour over a kettle of boiling water on the skin side of the belly pork and pat it dry it with some kitchen paper. The boiling water tightens the skin and helps to make the skin crispy later.
Rub about 1 -2 tsp of sea salt all over, on both the skin and the meat side.
Make some shallow cuts on the meat side, about an inch apart. You will use these cuts as a guide to cut the finished roast pork. On the meat side, sprinkle and rub in 5 tsp of 5 spice powder all over making sure that you get some in the cut crevices.
Leave the pork uncovered in the fridge overnight to dry out skin. This ensures that you get a good crispy skin.

Prepare to roast the pork belly

Preheat oven to 200C/400F/gas 6.
To roast, put the piece of bellypork, skin side up, on a wire rack over a pan of water. This will collect the fat that will be rendered out of the pork while roasting and stop the oil from splattering. You can also roast this on parchment paper or foil but the pork will sit in the pool of rendered fast and can burn,
Roast in a hot oven for 1 1/2 hours at 200C.
After 1 hour, brush the skin side with vinegar and put the grill on in the oven as well and watch the skin blister. ( I use the grill and fan oven function for this stage). Let it roast in the oven for another half an hour. If your oven has uneven cooking sections, rotate the piece of pork as it roast to get an even cook. (Watch out for smoke at this point as it can sometimes trigger the smoke alarm.)
Once roasted and the skin is nicely blistered and golden brown, remove from the oven and rest for 30 minutes. Then cut into smaller pieces for presentations and serve.
You should get a really crispy piece of Chinese Roast Pork with minimal effort.

Notes

Note: If you use a good free-range pork, the pork belly will not shrink as it hasn’t had a lot of added water content. The resulting meat will also taste much better than a bog standard supermarket pork belly.

How to serve crispy roast belly pork

I like to serve this as part of a family meal, with some other dishes like some stir-fried vegetables and maybe a soup.

For a quick lunch, serve the roast pork in a bowl of rice and add some pickles or slices of cucumber on the side.

No meal is complete without a spicy condiment. We usually serve this roast pork with a chilli garlic sauce . This would be the same garlic chilli that goes with Hainanese Chicken Rice.

What to do with leftover roast pork

If you have any of the roast pork left, you can try these recipes.

Cut the pork into small cubes and add it to fried rice.
Roast Pork in Sweet Soya Sauce. This Hokkien recipe is a regular dish in my grandma’s house. Using up the slab of crispy roast pork that was used as an offering on the altar, this makes a very moreish dish from the regular roast pork.