We love pork belly here at Have Butter will Travel and have always cooked it in the oven. This method proved to be a bit hit or miss for us. Sometimes the meat would be really tender and other times very chewy. One day, Erika decided to have a go at cooking slow cooker pork belly. This is now our preferred method.
Slow Cooker Pork Belly
Since the day Erika tried cooking the pork belly in the slow cooker we haven’t used the oven method to cook pork belly again. Every time we have cooked pork belly since we have used this method.
You may be thinking, that sounds great, but what about the crackling. We have that covered. To get the crackling, it goes in the oven once the meat is cooked and that gets a perfect crispy skin.
Using the Slow Cooker
I am so impressed with some of the awesome recipes that I have seen using the slow cooker. We are no longer limited to stews, soups and casseroles.
Here are some of our favourite recipes we LOVE to cook in our slow cooker;
- Bone Broth
- Satay Beef – This recipe is not a keto recipe, we just modify it slightly to make it keto.
- Massaman beef curry using Zest simmer sauce with stewing steak.
- Moroccan beef using Pete Evans simmer sauce
Here are some slow cooker recipes that I am looking forward to trying soon;
- Garlic chipotle lime chicken from Beauty and the Foodie
- Keto gumbo from Fit Mom Journey
- Zucchini bread from All Day I Dream about Food
- Low carb chocolate cake from All Day I Dream about Food
I love that you can even make a cake in the slow cooker!
Pork Belly
Pork belly has grown to popularity after being a popular cut of meat on cooking shows like Masterchef. It is the delicious fatty cut of pork that is from the underbelly of the pig. It is usually boneless and most famous for crackling. If you can get the crackling right, it will make your pork belly experience all the better.
Pork belly is an extremely popular popular cut of meat for keto. It’s popular due to it’s fattiness from the belly. It’s also a popular bacon cut as well. We always look for the fattiest bacon and a good amount of fat in our pork belly.
Keto Basics Challenge
This slow cooker pork belly recipe is part of our keto basics challenge. On the 1st of January 2019 we launched our keto basics challenge. After Christmas we decided we needed a challenge to start the year off with a keto bang!
The keto basics challenge involves removing all sweeteners, low carb baking and just bringing our diet back to the good old keto basics. It is running for the month of January 2019.
Our free challenge includes:
- Downloadable food list
- Downloadable accountability calendar
- Downloadable measurement tracker
- Downloadable keto basics guidelines
- Access to the exclusive HBWT keto basics Facebook group
- Weekly live Q&A sessions
- Weekly emails with recipe suggestions
Don’t worry if you have missed the challenge! Sign up below to receive an email when we begin the challenge again.
- Teriyaki Chicken Rice Bowl
- Mexican Chicken Salad
- Mexican tuna salad
- Tuna Salad without Mayo
- Panko Chicken
- Cream Cheese Pasta
- Lemon Chicken Marinade
- Mexican chicken marinade
- Smoked Chicken Salad
- Tandoori Chicken Salad
What is your favourite recipe to cook in the slow cooker? Let us know in the comments below.
Ingredients
- 1 kg (approx) pork belly (1 large piece, skin scored) (2.2lb)
- 1 cup bone broth
- 1-2 cloves garlic (optional)
- salt & pepper
Instructions
- Place the bone broth and whole garlic cloves in the bottom of your slow cooker bowl. The garlic cloves are just for flavouring the meat while cooking and are optional
- Liberally season the underside of the pork belly with salt and pepper and then place in the slow cooker skin side up. You want to make sure the pork belly is not completely submerged in the liquid, just about 3/4 of the way up the side. This will depend on the size and shape of your pork belly and slow cooker
- Cook on the low setting for 4 hours or until the pork belly meat is very tender and nearly falling apart
- Preheat the oven to 200C/400F
- Carefully remove the pork belly from the slow cooker and place in a shallow baking dish or rimmed baking try skin side up
- Dry the skin well with a paper towel and then season liberally with salt
- Bake in the oven for 45-60mins or until the skin is golden brown and crispy all over
- Remove from the oven and cover loosely with foil for 5-10 mins to rest
- Slice and serve
Video
Notes
Nutrition Per Serve
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I had never cooked pork belly before. I had eaten it out a lot but was always worried I would fail cooking it. Well, Have Butter Will Travel’s recipe is amazing! I followed the recipe and honestly the pork belly was restaurant quality. Absolutely divine.
Pork belly is so delicious
Absolutely brilliant. I think it’s the best pork belly I have ever made. I get the butcher to roll it and tie it rather than cook it in one flat piece largely cuz of the room available in my slow cooker and the number of people I need to cook for. Actually cooking it tomorrow for family at the specific request of my son. Really appreciate this recipe as I really appreciate both of you. The Best Jo Hodson
It’s the best way to cook pork belly. We love it
Oh my! Been cooking pork belly in the air fryer alone. Have adapted your method to my multi cooker – slow cooking then air frying to get the skin crispy. Never cooking this another way again! Sooo yum! For added flavor on the skin, I rubbed the softened garlic into the skin together with the salt. Thanks for sharing your method!
Awesome – that sounds delicious!
How does this store in the fridge or freezer? Would it be possible to cut it into individual portions and store in the fridge or freezer after being in the oven or would that just make it soggy and lose its crispiness? Would it work to slow cook it, cut it into serving portions and store in the fridge or freezer until required for a meal and then crisp up the individual portion in the oven?
It is best eaten after it is roasted, as the crackle will not stay crispy once you refrigerate it. If you were wanting to cook it ahead I would do the slow cooking and then roast on the night. I have not tried this before, but that is what I would do to make it ahead of time.
If you don’t want crispy skin on the pork belly can you cover with bone broth and cook for same time in slow cooker or would you need to cook longer?
I don’t think you would need to cook it any longer in the slow cooker Carol
loved this recipe – it was totally awesome and so easy to do
So glad you enjoyed it. We had it for dinner last night too!
When placing belly of pork in the slow cooker, should it be standing on a grill?
Comments appreciated
Patrick
No need for that. Just make sure the skin is facing up and that the broth isn’t covering the skin. The skin gets crispy when you pop it in the oven at the end, but we need to keep it dry before that.
Just came across this post while searching how to crisp pork belly fat. I cooked my pork belly last night in the oven according to the instructions on the pack but the fat was not crisp. I often cook boned pork shoulder in my slow cooker and take the layer of fat from the top after it’s cooked and crisp it up in the oven. Can I do the same thing with the fat from my pork belly? I’ve already eaten the meat but could not eat the fat as it was.
This recipe has you put the pork belly into the oven after slow cooking to crisp up the skin, The slow cooker is for cooking the meat. Either the air fryer or oven would be the only way i would say.
The only place I can get pork belly around me has it cut already – no apparent skin. So which side down? The fattier or meatier?
Fattier side up
We tried this pork belly tonight and I have to mention I have cooked pork belly many time before either in the oven or on the BBQ but this turned out to be the best we have ever had it looked great, cracking was perfect and the meat well it just feel apart. We will only ever do pork belly using this method in the future, Thank you, ladies.
Wow, thanks Matt. It’s making me want pork belly tonight.
Soooo good, I didn’t tell anyone about it and ate the whole thing all by myself. 😜
Thank you for this!
I love this Gina. Never share the pork belly.
Best pork belly ive ever made.
Thanks Tammy. It’s the only way we cook it now.