Cha Siu

Cha siu is one of my favorite Cantonese comfort foods. When I was a kid, it was almost guaranteed that I would order a steaming bowl of rice noodle soup topped with slices of cha siu when we went out to dinner. Tender, sweet, and savory, cha siu can be eaten on its own at dinner, but leftovers are where its versatility shines, adding a protein hit and flexing into fried rice, noodle dishes, or even baked or steamed into tender buns with ease. I usually just buy cha siu from my favorite Chinese roasted meat joints, but it’s actually one of the easiest Chinese deli meats to make at home. Here’s how you can roast this Cantonese classic yourself.

Cha siu is a Chinese sweet-glazed boneless cut of pork that can be found at both restaurants and in Chinese takeaway delis selling roasted meats. It is often called Chinese BBQ roast pork, but that name is a bit misleading, as it is not smoked or cooked over a grill. It’s marinated in a sweet sauce that’s often red in color, then roasted until a bit charred on the outside. Cha siu is the Cantonese name for this dish, but is often also called char siu, which is the Westernized pronunciation. I’ve often wondered when the “r” in char was added to the pronunciation, as that sound is not present in either the Cantonese or Mandarin pronunciations. Let’s all agree to drop the “r,” shall we?

While you can now buy pre-made cha siu sauce, it’s easy to stir together one with some pantry ingredients. Because it’s made up of a lot of bottled Chinese sauces, it’s worth sourcing good-quality brands to get the right balance of flavor, and the recipe lists a few brands I love (Lee Kum Kee is always reliable). Chinese markets and larger Asian grocery stores are great places to get these sauces from.

Besides easy-to-find ingredients like salt, brown sugar, honey, you’ll need hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine (dry sherry also works), and 5-spice powder. To get the signature red coloring, you can use food coloring and Chinese fermented red bean curd. They’re both optional, but the red bean curd adds an amazing depth of flavor and is often used in traditional cha siu. (Be careful that you buy red bean curd that’s red from red yeast, not from chiles; check the ingredients on the label.)

Stir the ingredients together and use some of it as the marinade and some of it as a glaze when mixed with some additional honey.

Boneless pork butt or pork shoulder is the best cut of pork for cha siu, as the fat keeps the meat nice and juicy, and the grain of the pork absorbs the marinade well. Cut a pork shoulder roast into slabs and do two key things before marinating: Poke the slabs all over with a fork to help the marinate penetrate (a great tip from Made with Lau), and salt the pork. There is salt in the sauces in the marinade, but the pork needs to absorb a little salt on its own to be well-seasoned too.

To make cha siu, marinate the slabs of pork for at least eight or up to 24 hours. Roast the pork on a wire rack set over a baking sheet filled with water for about one hour, brushing it with the glaze every 15 minutes. The water helps keep the drippings from the pork from flaring up and burning the cha siu. If you line the baking sheet with aluminum foil first, that’ll make cleanup a bit easier. To clean the rack afterward, flip it over on the baking sheet, fill the baking sheet with warm soapy water, and let everything soak for a little bit before scrubbing.

When freshly made, serve cha siu with steamed rice and some stir-fried greens for a quick, easy meal. It’s a great versatile cooked meat to have around and can be used in a myriad of other ways in Chinese cooking. Here are some of my favorites.

• Stuffed into Chinese steamed pork buns.
• Used as a topping for noodle soup.
• Used in place of ground pork for fried rice.
• Stir-fried with noodles.