Instant Pot Korean Style Boiled Pork Belly (보쌈, Bossam)
Bossam, or Korean style Boiled Pork Belly, is a wonderful dish that typically is served with a spicy radish side dish (musaechae) and pickled cabbage wraps. This is not easy to find in Korean restaurants because it normally would take about 2 hrs on the stove top. For that reason most of the time this dish served cold, which it still is delicious, but my preference is to eat this dish warm!
The Instant Pot makes it super easy to make this dish at home, in under an hour! While the Instant Pot is cooking the pork belly, I will prepare the radish dish. You can then serve the pork and radish with either red leaf lettuce, or pickled nappa cabbage to wrap together for the perfect bite!
Quick Notes:
⏲ <1 hr
🇰🇷 Some ingredients may need to be bought at a Korean grocery
👉 Click the links to buy Korean ingredients shipped to your door!
👨👩👧👦 Serves 4 people
👍 Very easy and great for beginners!
What you will need:
For the Pork water bath:
4 cups of water
1/4 cup of soy bean paste (doenjang)
1.5 cups of coke (1 can of coca-cola), or can substitute with 2 tablespoons of instant coffee
2 tablespoons of sugar
2-3 lbs of pork belly (or as much as you want, as long as the pork remains submerged in the liquid and fits the Instant Pot!)
10 peppercorns
6 cloves of whole garlic
1 onion
3 slices of ginger
2 bay leaves (optional, not shown on the video)
For the Radish Side dish:
1 large sized Korean radish, cut into matchsticks
4 green onions chopped
Kosher Salt (around 2 tbsp)
1 tbsp of sugar (use up to 2 tbsp if you're not used to spicy)
1/2 cup Korean Red Pepper Flakes
1/4 cup fish sauce
Splash of sesame oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons of sesame seeds
Prepare the pork belly:
Press SAUTE button on your Instant Pot. ahjumma tip: heating your water bath on SAUTE will reduce the time it takes for the Instant Pot to come to pressure! Add your water bath ingredients (water, soy bean paste, coke, sugar, peppercorns, garlic, onion, ginger, and optional bay leaves). Add your pork belly to the water bath. Press cancel. Close the lid. Press MANUAL then bring the timer to 20 minutes. Set the valve to SEALING. After the timer is done, Natural pressure release (NPR) for 10 minutes before VENTING the rest of the pressure. Open the Instant Pot. Remove the pork and allow to cool. Slice the pork as shown.
Prepare the spicy radish side dish:
Cut the Korean radish into matchsticks as shown. Sprinkle salt all over the radish (about 2 tablespoons) and mix well. Set aside for about 30 minutes. Drain off the excess water that collects after the pickling process. Add the above ingredients (chopped green onions, red pepper flakes, fish sauce, sugar, sesame oil, minced garlic, sesame seeds) and mix everything well. ahjumma tip: the radish dish tastes BEST if prepared the night before!
And now the rest:
If you choose to serve this with pickled napa cabbage, then generously salt your leaves of cabbage, then set aside for at least 1-2 hr. When ready to serve, rinse off the salt. If you're short on time, red leaf lettuce or perilla leaves are great substitutes! You are ready to eat!
And when you're done, be sure to post some pictures and tag them with #ahjummarecipes. I'd love to see your results!
