Italian Porchetta (All-Belly Pork Roast)
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This porchetta recipe is as good as it gets. It’s all-belly porchetta with rich, tender meat flavored with fennel and traditional Italian seasonings, and it has the crispiest, chicharron-like crackling. And don’t worry, making this famous Italian dish is surprisingly simple.
Porchetta is one of those recipes that instantly feels celebratory the moment it comes out of the oven. Rolled pork belly is layered with garlic, herbs, fennel, citrus, and spices, then slow-roasted until the meat becomes incredibly tender and the skin transforms into deeply golden, shatteringly crisp crackling. The aroma alone is enough to make people wander into the kitchen, asking when dinner will be ready.
Even though porchetta has a reputation for being a little intimidating, it’s actually much more approachable than it looks. Once the pork is seasoned and rolled, the oven does most of the work. I’ve included step-by-step photos in the recipe card so you can confidently work through every stage, from tying the roast to getting that crispy crackling just right.
What I love most about porchetta is how simple ingredients create such bold flavor. Fresh rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley, fennel, garlic, orange zest, and chili flakes infuse the pork as it roasts, while the citrus beautifully balances the richness. If you’re already a fan of pork belly, this is absolutely the kind of recipe you’ll find yourself making again and again.
If you’re a fan of pork belly recipes, this porchetta is one you’ll want on repeat. The crispy skin, juicy layers, and savory herb filling make it unforgettable, and it’s surprisingly simple to prepare at home. For another delicious take on pork belly, check out my Maple Glazed Pork Belly with Crispy Crackling.
How to get the crispiest skin
Porchetta is only as good as its crispy skin, so this is one part you have to nail. If you’ve ever seen pictures of porchetta with smooth skin, just know that this is not what you’re after! Luckily, there are only three things you need to do to get that delicious, potato chip-like skin.
- Poke holes all over the skin. Pick up a paring knife and lightly stab the skin all over. You’ll need to spend several minutes on this to cover the entire skin surface with small holes.
- Oil the skin. Rubbing oil all over the skin will help the fat to render and the skin to become extra crispy.
- A blast of high heat. To achieve wonderfully crisp bubbles, place the skin under high heat. Within minutes, you’ll start to see the skin change. It will darken, and then numerous small, super crispy bubbles will magically appear.
How much porchetta to serve per person? Most of the time, you’ll want to buy ½ pound of uncooked meat per person. But once you start eating pork belly, it’s incredibly hard to stop, which is why we plan on 1 pound per person. Also, leftovers are excellent made into porchetta sandwiches, so it’s wise to plan on making extra!
Italian Porchetta (All-Belly Pork Roast)
Ingredients
Instructions
Prep the porchetta
- Roll the pork belly into a long log and then mark where the skin overlaps. Unroll and remove the skin from the overlapping part.1 whole skin-on pork belly
- Unroll and remove the skin from the overlapping part.
- Use a paring knife to poke shallow holes all over the surface of the skin. Try not to go too deep and make lots of holes.
- Turn the pork belly over and cut diagonal lines into the meat to form a cross-hatch pattern.
- Grind the fennel seeds and chili flakes until coarsely ground. Transfer them to a bowl and add the orange zest, orange juice, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, parsley, 1 tablespoon of sea salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and sage and mix to form a paste.2 tablespoons fennel seeds, 1 tablespoon chii flakes, Zest from 2 oranges, ¼ cup orange juice, ¼ cup olive oil, ¼ cup chopped parsley, 2 tablespoons sea salt, 1 tablespoon EACH: minced rosemary, thyme, sage, and black pepper
- Run this paste all over the meat, using your fingers to work the rub into the meat.
- Roll the pork belly into a tight log and tie it with butcher twine at 1" intervals.
- Optional: if there is a lot of meat sticking out from the ends of the porchetta roll you can cut it off for a neater presentation. (see notes)
- At this point, the porchetta will be VERY long. Cut it in half to make it easier to cook.
- Rub the pork belly log with the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle the remaining 1 tablespoon of sea salt over the skin. Put the porchetta on the rack set over the baking dish and put it into your fridge for 24-72 hours.
Cook the porchetta
- Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the porchetta from your fridge and rub more olive oil over the skin. Put it into your oven on a middle rack and let it roast for 3-4 hours. It will be done when it reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Remove the porchetta from the oven and turn the temperature to broil. Lift the porchetta and the cooling rack off of the baking dish and carefully drain all the fat from the bottom of the baking dish into a heatproof bowl. Put the porchetta (and cooling rack) back onto the baking dish and baste the skin with the fat in the bowl.
- Once the oven comes up to temperature put the porchetta back into the oven. The skin will turn dark brown and bubbly under the high heat, but watch it very carefully so that it doesn't burn. Every 5-7 minutes, use 2 pairs of tongs to carefully rotate the porchetta so that the skin crisps all around. You'll know it's ready when it's dark mahoggany brown and the skin has lots of little bubbles in it.
- Remove the baking dish from the oven being very careful not to spill any of the hot fat that's in the baking dish. Let the porchetta rest for 15-20 minutes before carving it with a serrated knife.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
We have thoroughly tested this recipe for accuracy. However, individual results may vary. See our full recipe disclosure here.
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Have you tried using dried herbs for the recipe or it’s something you’d never recommend?
Great question! You can absolutely use dried herbs if that’s what you have on hand — just use about a third of the amount since they’re more concentrated than fresh. Fresh herbs add a little extra brightness, but dried will still give you lots of flavor. 💛
Bonjour,il faut compter combien de grammes par personne ?200gr? Je dois en faire pour 30 personnes 😁merci
Bonjour ! Comptez 200 à 300 grammes par personne.
In true italian fashion I used fennel pollen in place.of fennel seed. We made sandwiches using a good crusty irltalian bread drizzled with lemon olive oil and arugula. Add a little more lemon olive oil on top and some good cracked pepper. Momma Mia!
I love fennel pollen! Great idea to use it if you’ve got it!
Did you use fresh herbs or dried herbs in this recipe?
I use fresh herbs, but you can definitely use dried if that’s what you have on hand. If you use dried, you’ll want to reduce the amount to 1 teaspoon each.
Thanks for a delicious Christmas lunch Dec 2023. Recipe worked out really well and I achieved my best ever crackling.
I’m in the UK so grilling is close to your ‘broiling’ (I think…and that’s what I did and it worked out great).
1 thing I did was after draining off the fat from the roasting pan I added about 400ml of water.
Then I grilled/broiled the meat to get crispy crackling.
After the crackling was done and while the meat rested I made a decent gravy with the liquid and meat juices in the roasting pan.
Great call on the water to make gravy! I’m so happy that it turned out really well for you!
After cutting the porchetta in half and before cooking, could you vac pack it and freeze it for later?
Absolutely! I’ve frozen half before uncooked and it works great. I usually wrap it in parchment paper and then then put it into a Stasher bag. But vac packing it will work just as well.
No Garlic?
We don’t use any garlic, but you could certainly add some to the rub!
I’m slow,but in the recipe you instruct us to roll the belly. But it looks like you folded it. Am I not seeing correctly?
Depending on the size of the pork belly it will be somewhere between a roll and a fold. Ours only barely overlapped so that’s probably why it looks folded.
When I was a young man and did construction work outside in Connecticut the crew would go to the local Bar for lunch where many of them were operated by Italians, and they always had the best Porketta
and Roast Beef sandwiches. They were served on a
Portuguese roll with grave made from the roast . You could eat them all day , as they were the best and we were always very happy to work close by. This recipe is a gem and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to make this incredible meal. You will not be sorry that’s for sure.
Could be Pancetta on the bread
wow these belly porchetta is so rich and tender – EVERYONE loves it and requests for it all the time
This recipe is so perfect to put on the holiday table! Such a crowd-pleaser!!
Wow, this was amazing! I had no idea it would be this easy to make this flavor packed porchetta. I’m ready to impress my family with this one.
This porchetta is so delicious. Thanks for sharing how to tie the roll of meat together before cooking. I really appreciate all of your detailed instructions.
You’re welcome! Porchetta is a fairly simple recipe but the prep does involve some steps that I thought would be easier to show than describe. I’m really happy that you found it helpful!
I made this for Christmas dinner and it was fantastic! It was my first time making porchetta and I was a bit intimidated but the pictures you have made it a lot easier. And it tasted so much better than the turkey I usually make so I think a new tradition has begun!