Easy Pork Belly Bites

This post discovers how pork belly is a great dish for testing a new smoker out with. Pork is really forgiving and providing you don't have super high temperature you can cook this quite easily and I show you how to cook pork belly on the smoker.

Well worth the wait, this tasty pork belly bites recipe is a snack good for all occasions.

This was the first thing I tried on my new Weber Smokey Mountain smoker. It is a good fatty dish which spits off smoke and fat and makes the inside of your smoker well seasoned and mucky. Why would I do this? Well a nice shiny new smoker reflects heat everywhere and makes keeping steady temperatures difficult to maintain. A "well seasoned" smoker is covered in soot, ash, fat etc and all surfaces are consistent which helps keep temperatures steady.

Ingredients for pork belly bites

• Pork Belly - Choosing the right cut of meat is key to getting a good finish. Pork belly meat is a relatively cheap cut and can be bought in lots of supermarkets and butchers. You can generally find it available in strips. If not, buy a piece of large port belly and trim to size.
• BBQ Sauce - Any basic BBQ sauce will do. I prefer to use either Heinz or the Cruicial sauces. The latter tend to be a little cheaper from supermarkets such as Asda or from B&M Bargains.
• BBQ rub - Entirely up to you which type you want to go for. I recommend the Dust Bros rubs - BBQ Banger being a particular favourite of mine.
• Fry Light cooking spray - or any kind of oil spray. This is used to stop the belly sticking to the foil.

Try adding some of the apple sauce from this pork chop on the griddle recipe to add some extra flavour to this dish.

Where to buy pork belly in the UK

The cut you want for this recipe is fresh, uncured pork belly. Most UK supermarkets sell it in two formats: pre-cut slices in a tray, or as a boneless joint that you cut down yourself.

Quick comparison of UK supermarket options (prices approximate, May 2026):

Sliced or whole? Which is better for this recipe?

Sliced pork belly works fine for pork belly bites and saves a job. The slices are usually around 1.5cm thick, which is close enough to the cube size you want. Trim the long edge off each slice and you have ready-made bites in two cuts.

A whole boneless belly gives more control over the cube size and lets you trim the fat cap to your preference. Buy whole if you want larger 3cm chunks or plan to portion some for other recipes.

Skin-on or skinless?

For this recipe, skinless is better. The skin won't crisp at smoker temperatures of 130C, so you'll end up with rubbery rind. If your belly comes skin-on, slice the skin away before cubing. A sharp boning knife held flat against the meat does this in under a minute.

How much to buy:

Allow 200g of raw pork belly per person as a starter or snack portion. For a main with sides, 300-350g per person. The meat loses around 30% of its weight during the cook, so a 1kg pack feeds three to four as a generous appetiser.

Quality markers worth paying for:

• British, Red Tractor or RSPCA Assured labelling
• Free range or outdoor reared if budget allows
• A clear stripe of meat-fat-meat-fat-meat layers visible through the pack

Instructions for belly pork

Set up your smoker and soak the wood chips before putting on the fire.

Chop up the pork belly and place on a tray.

Cover in BBQ rub and cook for 3 hours at 130C/250F

Take off heat and cover in more BBQ sauce. Cook for a further 60 - 90 minutes

Serve Up with some sesame seeds or some chopped spring onion.

How do you know when pork belly bites are done?

Pork belly bites are done when the internal temperature reaches 90-95C (195-205F) and a probe slides in with no resistance. Time alone is not a reliable indicator. A 1.5cm cube hits this window in around 3 hours at 130C, but cube size, fat content and smoker stability all affect the timing.

Three checks to confirm doneness:

1. Probe temperature. Use a digital meat thermometer in the centre of the largest cube. You're aiming for 90-95C. Below 90C the meat will still be chewy. Above 95C the fat has rendered fully.
2. Probe feel. When the probe goes in, it should feel like pushing into warm butter. Any resistance means the collagen hasn't broken down yet.
3. Visual cue. The bark should be a deep mahogany colour, not pale brown. If the bites still look like raw pork with a rub on them, they need more time.

Why the temperature matters:

Pork belly is high in collagen, the tough connective tissue that runs through the meat. Collagen starts to break down into gelatine at around 70C but the process speeds up dramatically above 88C. Pulling the meat at 90-95C is what gives you the tender, almost spreadable texture that makes good pork belly bites worth the wait.

A note on thermometer choice:

A basic digital instant-read thermometer is fine for cube-sized cuts. A leave-in probe with a remote display saves opening the smoker every 30 minutes, which is a real benefit on a charcoal smoker where every lid lift costs you 10-15 minutes of temperature recovery.

Serving Time

When these are cooked are when they are nice and tender and not chewy. They should tear apart nice and easy. I prefer mine a bit more well done than most, but try experimenting with them and see how you get on.

Dishes such as my BBQ smoked gammon recipe work well on the smoker and can be cooked along side pork belly bites.

Pork belly smoker recipe

Belly pork on the BBQ smoker is one of those recipes that is difficult to get wrong. It is a good recipe as a first cut to try for a few reasons.

The most important reason is that the meat is quite cheap to buy, so even burning it to a crisp is not the end of the world. Some people really like a crunchy bit of pork crackling, so the worse case scenario will be that!

One of the great things about this pork belly smoker recipes is that it is a dish that can be kept for a while afterwards too. It is possible to freeze the cooked pork belly and can be enjoyed long after the initial smoke.

When freezing the meat from my pork belly smoker recipe, it is a good idea to keep in mind to portion it off and freeze into smaller portions. This makes grabbing a snack from the freezer much easier than having to chip off a few pieces from a big clump.

Simple sticky pork belly dish

This simple pork belly dish can be set up and pretty much left cooking while you go about your day. At a low temperature the pork only needs checking in on every couple of hours. Not forgetting to catch the BBQ sauce section toward the end. This is a key point in the process as it will stop the meat drying out too much.

To stop it getting too hot too soon, try setting up your smoking coals as the snake method. This means the coals will be a in a long strip and only start burning in a row rather than all together. It helps to keep a constant steady temperature.

Rubs and Sauces for belly pork

There are plenty of different BBQ flavour rubs out there to experiment with and different sauces can complement a pork belly smoker recipe too. Add to the smoke using some of these Jack Daniels BBQ sauce flavour glaze. They help seal in the flavour of the pork but also adding a little something extra with the bourbon whisky tones.

How about trying this with a spicy type rub? They come in all sorts of flavours and names, from Bad Byron's Butt Rub Barbecue rub to Devil Dust Hot Spice Seasoning! All daring names, so dare you try?

For a more advanced pork dish you could try pork loin with apple sauce. This can be cooked on a smoker (either charcoal or gas). Check out my recipe for easy juicy pork loin on the BBQ.

How did you get on?

I'd be interested to hear if you have had success in trying this recipe. Did you have any variations on the flavour that you used. Who says it has to be a BBQ pork belly bites?!

Sticky Pork Belly FAQs

What to serve them with...