Dedicated to Discipline: Recipes: Homemade Pancetta Recipe

I recently bought a meat pig (article HERE) and got a TON of pork belly.

I’m not a huge pork fan. Pork chops, if marinated, seasoned, and cooked correctly, are decent. Pork loin/tenderloin is good if, once again, it’s done correctly. Pork roasts are good but they’re full of fat, which isn’t exactly conducive to maintaining a good macro diet. Also, bacon is good, but it’s overrated in my opinion.

You’ll notice a common trend – pork has to be done correctly. It has to be marinated, seasoned heavily, and cooked correctly. It’s less forgiving than other types of meat like chicken, beef, and others.

Which brings me to my point about pancetta. Ah yes, lovely pancetta. I was first introduced to pancetta while working at an Italian restaurant. It’s full of flavor, has great texture, and is just overall great.

Oh wait, we forgot the introduction! Pancetta is NOT prosciutto – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve brought pancetta up to someone and they thought I was talking about prosciutto (literally probably 7 times in the past 5 days). Prosciutto is a dry-cured ham that is thinly sliced and almost always eaten uncooked. PANCETTA is salt-cured pork belly that is usually cooked. Notice that prosciutto is from the ham and is cured differently whereas pancetta comes from the belly and is salt-cured. It’s like comparing beef tenderloin to beef chuck meat. They’re two completely different cuts of meat and are cooked differently, though they do come from the same animal.

Pancetta is essentially unsmoked bacon and, in my opinion, has more complexity from the more intense curing process that utilizes different seasonings to impart a richer, deeper flavor.

I should also mention that quality pancetta is not easy to find. I had the luxury to be given what was considered “high-quality” pancetta, but it was still garbage compared to truly high-quality pancetta that would be found in Italy (or that you would make yourself). Real pancetta is unbelievably rich in flavor and has a depth that can’t be matched. It also is firmer from the more intense aging process, making the mouthfeel more pleasant.

With all of that said, I urge you to make your own pancetta. You can purchase pork belly at most Asian markets – I’ve not seen pork belly at most grocery stores, though a place like AJ’s or Whole Foods probably has it. If you go to an Asian market than the price will be pretty reasonable, and the only other thing you’ll need is spices.

Spices

Which brings me to my next point. Do your best to buy and use the highest quality spices you can. You will thank yourself. Don’t buy them from any grocery store – order spices online from Spice House or go to Penzy’s, but don’t go buying cheap grocery store spices. This will increase your cost to make pancetta, but, once again, it will be worth it. Personally, I use spices from Spice House for this application. It’s expensive but their quality is unbelievable.

Pancetta also takes time to make, so be patient. In the words of Alton Brown, “your patience will be rewarded”. This is roughly a 3-week process – you can wait 3 weeks for a quality product, so no cheating.

The pancetta recipe is made based upon proportions of the total meat weight. Each spice is measured out based upon the total weight of the pork belly. I am providing you with a worksheet that gives you percentages for my cure, which will have spaces for you to record your weights needed. It’s very simple to use. All you need is a calculator.

Step 1: The Cure

No, we aren’t talking about the cure for COVID-19 here, we are talking about the cure for your pancetta. The cure is what is used to make your pancetta shelf-stable. The cure is salt-based, which draws moisture out of the meat, and basically makes the meat inhospitable for bacteria. In addition, nitrites can be added to further the effectiveness of your cure. This is done by using pink salt. Though the recipe and method that I’m going to provide doesn’t necessarily require the use of pink salt, I recommend it. Nitrites at high levels can be dangerous to people but curing uses such an extremely small amount that it is negligible. In addition, it provides you with a tastier, more shelf-stable, safer product to eat. If you decided to roll your pancetta (this recipe doesn’t roll the pancetta) than you need to use pink salt. Seriously. Use it. Or you could get botulism.

The cure mix. You can see how little pink salt is used compared to everything else.

The cure should be mixed together and rubbed into every nook and cranny of your pork belly. If you have excess cure, put into the bag that your pork belly will be placed in as it cures. In addition, make sure that you flip your curing pancetta over every day during the 7-day curing process.

After day one of the cure, there was a good amount of liquid that had come out of the pancetta, and it was noticeably firmer, which is exactly what you want. As each day passed, the pancetta became firmer and there was more liquid inside the bag.

The pork belly after the cure has been applied.

Step 2: Wash Off the Cure

After 7 days, you will remove the belly from the bag, and you will wash off the remaining cure. Wash off as much as possible. You will have a nice, semi-firm belly that smells and looks amazing.

What the pork belly looks like after the one-week curing process.

Step 3: Apply Seasoning

Once the cure has been washed off, use paper towels to dry off the pork belly. You want it to be nice and dry to inhibit any bacteria growth.

The pork belly with black pepper seasoning. I used a blend of different kinds of black pepper, which you can see by the different colors on the surface.

You’re then going to apply your seasoning mix. This is where you can be a little creative. Your seasoning should be heavy in black pepper as it provides for antibacterial properties, but don’t be afraid to add some other seasonings. I made two different pancettas; one used just black pepper and the other used black pepper, fennel, and sage. Be sure to really rub the seasoning in. You want as much seasoning to stick as possible, so get your hands dirty.

Step 4: Aging

This is perhaps the most stressful part of the process. Your pancetta must now age for about two weeks. The thing is that it can’t be too warm or too cold, too humid or too dry. It has to be just right.

I have an old fridge in my garage that is pretty much empty, so I set up space in it to age the pancetta. You can do this in the fridge in your kitchen, but it uses up a lot of space.

Hanging

First, you need to figure out a way to hang the meat so that it has completely free-flowing air around the entire thing. This is crucial for even aging/drying. Personally, I used strong fishing line to tie the pieces of meat onto the shelves of the fridge. You can use any sort of food-safe material to hang the meat, such as butcher’s twine (this is what I recommend). I stabbed toothpicks through the meat to give the fishing line something to hang onto, as I didn’t want the line in direct contact with the meat. If you use butcher’s twine then you can just run the twine directly through the meat. I also placed a sheet pan below the pancetta to catch anything that might fall, such as excess seasoning.

Humidity

Then, I used a small diffusor to make the air more humid. I filled the diffusor with water at least every other day to increase the humidity in the fridge. I also placed a small container filled with salt water to increase the humidity – I’m not sure if this actually does anything, but the internet said it might, so I tried it. Obviously, you can become much fancier with this setup. You can set up a temperature and humidity gauge to determine them, along with a system to automatically make adjustments. You can also use a humidifier filled with water to increase humidity.

Temperature

The temperature of the aging spot should be 50-60 degrees. That isn’t to say that anything slightly over or under will hurt anything, but it also won’t give you the best product. I turned my fridge temperature up slightly, and the average temp was between 46 and 48 degrees – as we just mentioned, this won’t give you the best product, but it’ll still be dang good. I would try my best to not go above 60 degrees, as then you’ll be dealing with a higher chance for mold growth. Mold is fine on pancetta, but it depends on what kind of mold. I’d like to not even dance with the chances of me misidentifying mold, so I try to avoid it altogether. With that said, it is still possible to get mold at all temperatures, but odds are that you’ll get a safe mold at lower temperatures.

I found this setup to be nearly perfect. I had a little bit of drying on a small portion of one of the pancettas, but there was otherwise zero. You can tell that there is drying because the pancetta will become a dark, almost brown color. This isn’t to say that the pancetta is bad, but the texture won’t be as good as it should be.

The finished product. You can see in this picture the small amount of dark portions of the pancetta (top left corner of the top piece). This is where the pancetta has dried.

I let the pancetta age for two weeks. Well, I actually tried some on day 8. It was good. In fact, it was very good. However, let me tell you. LET. ME. TELL. YOU. Aging to 14 days took the pancetta to a whole different level.

I tried the traditional black pepper pancetta first. It was immaculate. The thing that struck me most was the presence of an underlying fruitiness. It was almost as if it was seasoned with dried berries. It was incredible and crazy all at the same time. I’m thinking that this is a combination of the pork just condensing flavors to become sweeter, but also the use of pink and green peppercorns (especially the pink) added a hint of sweetness that deepened through the aging process.

Recipe

I really hope that you guys try this recipe. I know it might be daunting, but I can assure you that it is not hard. In fact, it’s quite simple, but it takes time and space to be done correctly. Also, be sure to use the worksheet to determine the values you need for the cure and seasoning. You can download the worksheet HERE. If you do decide to try the recipe then be sure to comment down below as to how it was!

Traditional Pancetta Recipe

All percentages are determined by weight as they reflect the total weight of the pork belly.

Pork Belly

Cure

2.6% Salt

0.26% Pink Salt

1.9% Black Pepper

1.1% Brown Sugar

2.3% Juniper Berries, Dried

1.9% Nutmeg

0.8% Thyme, Dried

Seasoning

3.2% Black Pepper, Ground

1.) Place all cure ingredients into spice grinder and pulse until finely ground.

2.) Completely cover the pork belly with the cure mix.

3.) Place pork belly into vacuum seal bag and seal. If you do not have access to a vacuum sealer than pork belly can be placed into a gallon zip-lock bag.

4.) Place pork belly into a cool, dark place (refrigerator) for 7 days, flipping the bag every day.

5.) After 7 days, remove the pork belly from bag and wash off the cure.

6.) Place pork belly on cutting board and pat completely dry using paper towels.

7.) Using a spice grinder, grind the black pepper used for the seasoning.

8.) Completely cover the cured pork belly with the black pepper.

9.) Wrap the pork belly in cheesecloth to prevent excess black pepper from falling off, and to help retain humidity.

10.) Hang the pork belly in a place that is 50-60F and at least 50% humidity for 14 days. If there is not enough humidity in the hanging area than add a diffusor/humidifier/ cups of water to increase the humidity within the area.

11.) Once 14 days have passed, the pancetta is finished.

As always, thank you for reading and I will see you next time.