Porkbelly Tacos: How do you like'em

[jjdbike]

Hello friends,

I am smoking some Berkshire porkbelly tomorrow with hickory. I'm doing half brisket style for slicing, and cubing 1/2 for sweet heat burnt ends.

We are hosting neighbors, and a visitor from Liverpool. I want to sever something he, and the rest of the gang has never experienced. I want to serve them in tacos. Side will include charro beans and roasted corn salad.

What would you add to the tacos? I am including pickled red onions, candied jalapeños, cotija cheese, potentially cilantro, shredded cabbage or coleslaw, BBQ sauce, chili infused honey, sriracha mayo.

How would serve the sliced brisket style and the sweet heat burnt end cube tacos?

Thanks in advance!
JD

[jjdbike]

Hello friends,

I am smoking some Berkshire porkbelly tomorrow with hickory. I'm doing half brisket style for slicing, and cubing 1/2 for sweet heat burnt ends.

We are hosting neighbors, and a visitor from Liverpool. I want to sever something he, and the rest of the gang has never experienced. I want to serve them in tacos. Side will include charro beans and roasted corn salad.

What would you add to the tacos? I am including pickled red onions, candied jalapeños, cotija cheese, potentially cilantro, shredded cabbage or coleslaw, BBQ sauce, chili infused honey, sriracha mayo.

How would serve the sliced brisket style and the sweet heat burnt end cube tacos?

Thanks in advance!
JD

I also notice that Mexican restaurants double their tortillas when serving tacos. Do you do that at home?

Respectfully,
JD

[Mosca]

“Con copia, por favor!”

It depends on the tortillas. Double up thin ones.

[DaveD]

Some do double tortillas, some don't. I personally don't.

Your taco plan sounds outstanding. You might want to allow your guests to load up their own, and just have all those fixins there in dishes that people can mix and match. Adds a fun element as people try different combos. About the only add I'd suggest is maybe a second kind of cheese, a sharp cheddar or monterey jack...

Good luck! We will need an after-action report!

[Oak Smoke]

We serve a much simpler group of toppings. If your guest tries a taco with some of everything on it, it may not be that good. A good pico de gallo will cover for several veggies. We don’t double tortillas normally but to be honest we eat mostly soft shell tacos.

[Oak Smoke]

RonB it was a thing locally for a while to spread refried beans on a soft tortilla then wrap it around a hard shell taco. They were quite good and the beans glued it all together if it cracked.

[barelfly]

RonB - double decker taco from Taco Bell! I use to crush a few of these as a teenager… as Oak Smoke says - spread some refried beans on the soft tortillas then add the hard taco shell. Good stuff!!!!

[texastweeter]

We serve homemade double decker tacos about once a week here

[jjdbike]

Some do double tortillas, some don't. I personally don't.

Your taco plan sounds outstanding. You might want to allow your guests to load up their own, and just have all those fixins there in dishes that people can mix and match. Adds a fun element as people try different combos. About the only add I'd suggest is maybe a second kind of cheese, a sharp cheddar or monterey jack...

Good luck! We will need an after-action report!

Thanks DaveD,

I know that you are correct. I suppose I am being too controlling by choosing their toppings. I wanted to serve an attractive presentation. I have taco holders for their plates.

I will take your advice and report back.

Respectfully,
JD

[Carolyn]

I have to agree. Some people have a limited palate and not care for things like pickled onions. You can make a display one with everything in it and have it on a plate with some greens. Might look cool for the table set-up.

[DaveD]

Plus, half the fun of tacos is putting them together...

[BigD]

If you have some time, look up the Meat Church video on YouTube titled "Bacon Brisket with Dayne Weaver". They make a taco similar to your toppings and it's probably up there for some of the best tacos I have eaten. I think you have everything on your list to make it except i think they use feta cheese instead of cotija. Good luck and I'm sure you will knock it out of the park!

[jjdbike]

Yes, I watched this video twice. he also used "micro-greens".
Thanks!

[Pobeque]

Only thing I'd add to this is that if you are planning to serve slices in the tacos, I'd cut the slices then sear off in a hot pan to get the sides crispy....other than that it sounds great. I also like making a quick tomatillo salsa its so easy - just char up some tomatillos, onion, garlic, jalepenos/serranos then blend with cilantro and lime

[captainlee]

Was going to do pizza tonight but major snow storm has arrived. We switched to pulled pork tacos. Will top with avocado, cilantro, lime, cotija cheese, jalapeno and maybe something else in stock here, very much like your pork belly.

[barelfly]

TACOS!!!!!!!!!

you have the key ingredient in my opinion - the acid to help balance the richness of the PB. I also like the addition of the cotija. For me, I wouldn’t add bbq sauce though, I think that takes away from what the flavor profile - well, maybe the sweet heat. What are you rubbing the belly with for the sliced brisket style?

You could make a salsa of some type, again thinking acidic, so pineapple and mango. Or even perhaps a tomatillo salsa, although I like the pineapple or mango over tomatillo.

Also - on tortillas, the double tortilla may be due to the size being used, like a smaller street taco tortilla. As long as you warm up the tortillas on a griddle or similar, if they are regular size I think you are ok with just a single tortilla.

Can’t wait to see how these turn out! I have a small portion of belly in the freezer and this makes me want to make some tacos as well!

[SheilaAnn]

Sounds like a great plan! When served (or serving) double wrapped tacos, I pick up the inside, filled tortilla and eat it over the outside tortilla…. Whatever falls out creates a second taco. #winning

[Sweaty Paul]

Looking forward to seeing this cook and spread!

[58limited]

I love pork belly tacos. The best one I've ever had was in Virginia. There was a food truck named Taco Town VA outside a brew pub that I was at with my BIL. Their version used candied pork belly - it was cut into thin strips and candied with Korean bbq sauce - topped with corn pico de gallo and cotija cheese. I just checked their website, its not listed on their online menu but they posted about the taco in Feb 2025 so maybe they only have it at certain pop ups.

[barelfly]

Just remembered one of my favorite pork belly taco flavor profile - Korean pork belly tacos with kim chi, or a daikon kim chi! You talk about dynamite!!!!!!!!!!

[texastweeter]

Do my bacon egg and cheese deerstand tacos count as pork belly tacos?

[jjdbike]

Hello everyone,

I had a near tragedy. As I was prepping the sides in the kitchen, my wife said, "something smells like it's burning". She says that all the time so I half sarcastically, I said, "wood?" She said, "no, meat". Un oh, the pork had been on for about an hour. It turned out that the cubed pork belly cubes were in fact starting to burn. The combination of the KBQ's accelerated cooking time due to the convection, and the small 1 1/2" cubes had them starting to char. I lost about 8 of them because they were too far gone. The rest I put in a 1/2 steam tray and tossed them in a combo of Meat Mitch Womp (Kansas City style BBQ sauce), honey and apple, cherry, habanero rib candy. Tossed the back in at 225. At this point I satred spriting the 3 pork belly "briskets". After another 30 mins I removed the burnt ends, drained excess sauce and rendered fat, and added a little butter and honey to mellow the heat of the sauce. I covered in foil and placed them in a 150 degree oven. Another hour in, the "briskets" were fairly uniformly at 200. I pulled them, hit them w/ another spitz of ACV, wrapped tham w/a couple pats of butter, and into the 150 oven for the two hours till service.

The good news is, they came out great. They were a huge hit. Against my better judgement, I agreed to serve buffet style allowing guests to build their own tacos (w/my suggestions).

I only have pics pre-wrap because after that I lost my phone. I'll look for it when the sun is fully up. Funny how much they do look like brisket burnt ends and point roast.

Thanks for your suggestions friends (& Matt Pittman).
Best regards,
JD

[Ace]

Nice Nice Nice... 😎

[58limited]

I had a similar thing happen once but it was a grease fire on an offset smoker: the pork belly cubes were the closest meat to the fire box and as the fat rendered and dripped into the catch pan it ignited. We only lost five pork belly cubes though and everyone thought that overall they were the best pork belly burnt ends we had made up to that point.

[Sweaty Paul]

Looks fabulous!