Grilled Pork Belly Yakitori

We made some Yakitori Sauce the other day, and I had some leftover Pork Belly.  I decided to make some Grilled Pork Belly Yakitori with green onions. It was super fast and tasted so good!

🧑‍🍳 Preparation

Step One: Cut the pork belly into 1” cubes and the green onions into 1.5” sections.  Alternate the pork belly with the green onions when adding them to the skewer. It’s as easy as that!  No additional prep work is needed.

I used flat metal skewers for this recipe.  Why, you may ask? Later in this post you will see that I fought a lot of flare ups and the first time I tried this it burned all of the wooden skewers.  Oops.

Also, I found that FLAT skewers worked much better than the round ones. Flat skewers allowed me to turn over the kebabs without having to worry about the meat spinning. It definitely saved a lot of angst!

🔥 Grilling Instructions

Step One: This is a direct flame recipe.  Set up the BGE by removing the plate setter.  Drop in a fire starter and open the bottom and top vents.  I let the grill heat up longer than usual as I wanted a nice even flame in the coals. Of course, if you are using a gas grill, you don’t have to do all this.

Step Two: When the coals are evenly burning, reduce the opening in the top and bottom vents and bring the temperature back down to about 350 degrees.  After the temperature stabilizes, it is time to add the skewers.

Step Three: Add the skewers evenly space on the grate.  The chunks of the pork belly are fairly small, so this recipe will not take long to cook.  Close the lid and let them cook for about five minutes. The bottom of them should have a nice, defined sear to it.

Step Four: With a pair of long tongs, turn the skewers over so the other side of the meat can cook.  Brush on a generous amount of the Yakitori Sauce.

Why did I specify long tongs?  When I opened the lid of the Egg, the flames really came alive.  The pork belly is a very fatty cut of meat, and the fat was rendering and dripping into the flames causing a pretty good flare up.

I had to go back into the kitchen and grab a longer pair of tongs so I didn’t burn myself.  Turn these over quickly!

Note: A good pair of grill gloves was an investment I made shortly after I realized my arm hairs got a nice singe! I did a review of the best grill gloves and focused heavily on the importance of the longer sleeves on the gloves to avoid this in the future.

Step Five: After another five minutes, the pork belly yakitori should be done.  Open the lid (carefully this time!) and turn over a skewer to see if there is a good sear. Make sure the pork belly is cooked all the way through.

Remove them from the grill.

🍽️ Serving

Traditionally, this dish is served on wooden skewers and you eat it straight from skewer. After burning through the wooden skewers, I replaced them with longer metal skewers. I slid the chunks of pork belly off of the skewer and ate it with a fork and knife.  Dipping it in a bit more Yakitori sauce really helped that flavor just POP!

Other Recipes

Homemade Yakitori Sauce – It all starts here. Save your money and make this Yakitori Sauce at home. This goes with just about everything, so make a bit extra!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe!