Slow-cooked, Wadadli-spiced Cubano pork belly

This pork builds coriander, parsley and mint into a proper meal you can have ready in about 110 minutes. You'll find the full ingredient list (with a scaler to change the servings), 13 steps of method, substitutions, and ideas for what to serve alongside.
You'll mainly reach for oven and blender. At involved difficulty across 13 steps, it's worth setting aside proper time for. As written, the ingredients are plant-based.
What you'll need
Shopping list (8)
Pantry staples (you likely have these)
🔁 Unit converter
How to make it
- Blitz all the marinade ingredients in a food processor or with a hand blender.
- Lay the pork in a large dish, pour over the marinade, then turn the meat in the mixture, rubbing in the marinade all over and making sure every bit of the belly is coated.
- Cover the dish and leave overnight in the fridge.
- The next day, heat the oven to 140C (120C fan)/275F/gas 1.
- Lift the meat out of its marinade (don’t wipe off any that sticks to the joint, though; just leave most of the marinade behind in the dish) and transfer to a large roasting dish.
- Cover with foil, slip into the oven and roast for four and a half hours – every now and then (say, three or four times over the whole cooking period), take the dish out of the oven, lift off the foil lid and spoon the juices from the bottom of the dish over the meat.
- Return the foil lid, then put back in the oven.
- After the time is up, remove the foil, turn up the heat to 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas 4 and give the pork a final blast – after 15-20 minutes, the top will take on a lovely colour and the meat should be yielding and soft enough to cut with a spoon.
- To make crackling shards to serve with the meat, heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6 and line a roasting tray with baking paper.
- Lightly score the skin from the pork belly with a sharp knife, then rub it with a three or four fat pinches of salt – I also like to add a few caraway, cumin or fennel seeds at this point (use anything that takes your fancy).
- Cut the skin into long strips and lay these fat side down on the lined tray (you can, of course, leave it whole, but I think its pleasing to dress the plate with long, golden shards of crackling).
- Lay a second sheet of baking paper on top of the skin, then put a second baking tray of the same size on top, and roast for 45 minutes to an hour (if by this point the crackling has not gone crisp, just put it back in the oven and carry on roasting it until it has).
- Cut or pull the pork apart, top with finely chopped coriander and flat-leaf parsley and shards of crackling, if you have made them, and serve at once
You'll use: Oven · Blender · Food processor · Baking tray
Ingredient substitutions
- Lime
- lemon
Tips & common questions
How long does Slow-cooked, Wadadli-spiced Cubano pork belly take to make?
About 110 minutes from start to finish — an estimate based on the 13 steps and 15 ingredients. Times vary with your kitchen and how much prep you do ahead.
What can I use instead of lime?
Try lemon. See the substitutions section above for more swaps.
Can I scale this recipe up or down?
Yes — use the servings control above the ingredients and every quantity rescales automatically (fractions included). Cooking times stay roughly the same; very large batches may need a little longer.
Is Slow-cooked, Wadadli-spiced Cubano pork belly vegan?
Based on its ingredients, this recipe contains no meat, fish, dairy or egg, so it looks vegan-friendly. Always double-check labels on packaged items.
Recipe data for Slow-cooked, Wadadli-spiced Cubano pork belly via TheMealDB (open database). Original source. Consomee adds the scaler, ingredient tools, timing and structure — how we source recipes.







