This braised soy sauce pork belly dish is adapted from the traditional braised pork belly with black bean sauce.  I love this dish because you can make it a one pot meal with mung bean noodles that soak up the delicious sauce from this stew.

This dish can either be made in a regular saucepan or pressure cooked in an instant pot.

Tips to making this braised soy sauce pork belly.

For this dish, I usually cook the pork a day ahead of time so that the pork can be cooled in the refrigerator to remove most of the fat that is rendered  (melted) during the initial cooking process.

Pork.

When buying pork belly, find a piece with minimum fat.  However, this is personal preference.  Some of the fat will render into oil which can be removed when refrigerating the sauce overnight.  Removing the fat layer may not be necessary if the pork is very lean and you can tolerate fatty foods. However, I tend to be health conscious and tend to buy lean pork AND remove the fat, much to my one daughter's disappointment.

The pork skin exudes more oil during browning when the skin is pricked with a tenderizer or lacerated with a sharp knife.

Tenderize the pork skin prior to cutting the pork belly into 1.5" (4 cm) cubes.

Brown the cubes of pork belly before adding the diluted soy sauce chicken mixture helps render the fat due to the higher surface temperature.

Allow the pork belly to pressure cook with the soy sauce chicken mixture for 15 minutes to somewhat soften the meat.  After this step, the meat can be cooled and the congealed fat can be removed.

Vegetables.

Shitake mushrooms, Chinese radish (daikon) and potatoes are usually added to this pork stew.  The potatoes absorb the saltiness of the sauce.  Do not use baking potatoes as they tend to disintegrate under pressure!  However, this will just create a thicker sauce. Cut the vegetables in chunks similar in size to the cubed pork.

Pressure cook this for an additional 10 minutes to soften the vegetables and allow the sauce and vegetables to blend together.

Thickening the sauce.

Thicken the sauce with a cornstarch water slurry by adding it to the soy sauce mixture while the mixture is at a boil on the "saute" mode of the instant pot.

Making the braised soy sauce pork belly a one dish meal.

To make this a one dish meal, add softened mung bean noodles, or any other noodles  that do not  get too soggy in a liquid, to the stew before serving.  The sauce for the stew will flavor the noodles.