Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Lu Rou Fan
Rice topped with glossy braised minced pork in a five-spice soy sauce, Taiwan's everyday braised-pork bowl.
Taiwanese · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 75 min
~847 cal · 60g protein · 82g carbs · 30g fat · 2g fiber · 9g sugars · 10g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Lu rou fan, pork rice, is arguably Taiwan's most iconic everyday dish, sold everywhere from night-market stalls to humble eateries and cooked in home kitchens across the island. A modest bowl of rice and stewed pork, it inspires deep devotion.
Finely chopped or minced pork, ideally with plenty of fatty belly, is slowly in a fragrant sauce of soy, rice wine, five-spice, and often fried shallots and rock sugar until it turns dark, glossy, and unctuous. Spooned over a bowl of hot white rice, sometimes with a egg and pickled greens alongside, it is salty-sweet, rich, and cheap.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally dairy- and nut-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
1 1/2 lb skin-on pork belly, finely chopped or slivered
3 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
6 dried shiitake, soaked and diced (keep the soaking water)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1 bunch bok choy or choy sum, , to serve
1/2 cup fried shallots
1/4 cup rice wine
1 tsp five-spice powder
2 tbsp rock sugar
4 eggs, (optional)
4 cups cooked rice, to serve
Instructions
1
Blanch the chopped pork belly in boiling water for a minute, drain and rinse off the scum.
✎ Chef’s note
Keep the skin on. It dissolves into the braise and is what gives lu rou fan its glossy, faintly sticky body; skinless pork gives you a thin, ordinary meat sauce.
2
Brown the pork in a dry pan to render its fat, then add the garlic and the rock sugar and cook until the sugar melts and smells caramel, and stir in the fried shallots.
3
Add both soy sauces, the rice wine, five-spice, white pepper, the diced shiitake and their soaking water, and enough water to cover, and braise at the barest simmer, covered, for at least 90 minutes.
✎ Chef’s note
Braise it low and slow so the fat turns silky, then take the lid off at the end and reduce until the sauce coats a spoon but there is still plenty of it. The fried shallots are what separate lu rou fan from a Shanghainese red-braised pork: they melt invisibly into the sauce and bring a toasted sweetness nothing else supplies. Use both soy sauces, light for salt and dark for the colour.
4
Add the peeled eggs to braise in the sauce if using.
5
Spoon the glossy pork and sauce over bowls of hot rice with a halved braised egg and a little blanched green vegetable, and scatter over a few more fried shallots.
Taiwanese night-market tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Taipei. Taiwanese cooking carries a Japanese layer from fifty years of colonial rule, visible in the boxed lunch, in the taro and sweet potato sweets and in the shaved ice eaten through the summer. The Chinese regional cooking arrived separately and later, after 1949, with well over a million people from across the mainland.
🗺️
Taiwan. Beef noodle soup is a post-1949 dish. It arrived with the Nationalist retreat, when well over a million mainlanders came to an island where beef was barely eaten, and the leading account traces the Sichuan-style version to military dependants' villages around Gangshan in the south, where the spicy broad-bean paste it depends on is a local speciality. That account is a scholar's argument, not a settled fact.
🌍
Asia. Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, and its food spans the delicate seasonality of Japanese washoku, the chili-fired curries of India and Thailand, and the wheat-and-lamb traditions of Central Asia. Rice, noodles, soy, and fermentation recur across its regions, while ancient spice routes and religious traditions shaped distinct grammars of flavor. Whether from a street-cart wok or a monastery kitchen, eating is deeply communal and ritual-rich.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Taiwan
Taiwanese Beef Noodle SoupChewy wheat noodles in a dark, star-anise beef broth with melting shank and pickled mustard greens.
Dan BingA soft, chewy egg crepe rolled up and sliced, Taiwan's favorite hot breakfast off the griddle.
Gua Bao (Pork Belly Buns)Taiwan’s famous night-market bun: a pillowy folded steamed bun cradling red-braised pork belly, tangy pickled mustard greens, cilantro, and sweet peanut powder.
Browse all Taiwan recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Cool leftover rice quickly and refrigerate within an hour. Keep up to 2 days and reheat until piping hot all the way through.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Lu Rou Fan?
Rice topped with glossy braised minced pork in a five-spice soy sauce, Taiwan's everyday braised-pork bowl.
Where does Lu Rou Fan come from?
Lu Rou Fan is a Taiwanese dish from Taipei, Taiwan.
Can Lu Rou Fan be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Lu Rou Fan recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Lu Rou Fan safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Lu Rou Fan take to make?
About 90 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 75 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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