air fryer porchetta
Sorry but how good does this air fryer porchetta look??! 😍
It does take a little longer than other air fryer recipes but it is so worth it. Treat yourself and make this the star of your next Sunday dinner. See ya chicken, byeeee beef, hello delicious pork.
Can I mix up the seasonings?
Yes, of course! Simply replace the flavours in this recipe with any others you prefer. Black garlic is a delicious replacement for standard garlic; or you could even use smoked garlic. Alternatively, you could change up the herbs: try using lemon thyme or sage. The possibilities are endless and please tag me in all your porchetta creations.
For that classic British approach, I like to serve the porchetta with sautéed, buttered leeks, roast potatoes, garlic gravy and a big olde dollop of apple sauce. Can you tell that I’m super into garlic?
For my air fryer recipes, check out my book Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious Air Fryer Cookbook
Ingredients
- 800g–1kg piece of whole, bone-out pork belly, preferably a long piece (your butcher might be best for this)
- 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
- 1 tablespoon chilli flakes
- 3 garlic cloves
- 3 rosemary sprigs, leaves picked
- 3 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
- 1 lemon, zested
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon sea-salt flakes
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- vegetable oil, for spraying
- salt and ground black pepper
- You will also need butchers twine (meat string)
Method
- Prep your pork belly. Place it on a plate, skin side up and season it with the regular table salt. Then, leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight.
- The next day get the meat out of the fridge and leave it to come up to room temperature (at least 30 minutes).
- While the meat is coming up to room temperature, make the filling. Heat a frying pan over a medium heat, add the fennel seeds and chilli flakes and toast them until you can smell them getting aromatic (about 30–40 seconds). Then, get them into a pestle and mortar with the garlic, fresh herbs, lemon zest and olive oil, mash them together until they form a paste of sorts. Add the flaky salt and season with black pepper.
- Turn your pork belly upside down so that the meat is uppermost, then, using a sharp knife, make a diamond criss-cross pattern in the meat and begin to rub in the herby paste, completely covering the meat in an even layer.
- Place 3–5 pieces of butcher’s twine (long enough to tie around your meat) underneath the pork belly, equally spaced apart, then begin to roll the pork belly so that the skin is on the outside and the filling is encased. Using the middle string first, tie the pork belly in place with a simple double knot. (You can search ‘butcher’s knot’ online to learn how to do it professionally, but anything that holds will do.)
- Heat the air fryer to 120°C/230°F.
- Rub the baking powder all over the skin of the rolled pork belly and spray the air-fryer basket and pork belly with some oil.
- Place the porchetta in the air-fryer basket and cook it for 25 minutes, then turn the air fryer up to 200°C/400°F and cook it for a further 20 minutes, until it’s cooked through. After this, if your skin still needs a bit more crisping to your liking, cook in 5-minute intervals until you get it just right.