Pork Belly Burnt Ends with Hot Pepper Jelly

We take our go-to pork belly burnt ends recipe and improved upon it. Cubed pork belly is seasoned and smoked on a pellet grill before going into an aluminum pan with butter, honey and hot pepper jelly. The pork belly was smoked again until the porcine nuggets were pillowy soft. We blind taste tested them versus our go-to recipe and the pork belly burnt ends with hot pepper jelly won in a landslide.

How to Make Pork Belly Burnt Ends Better

I know, I know. Pork Belly Burnt Ends are amazing and can’t possibly be improved so don’t even try. And yes, that recipe is phenomenal and those little nuggets of porcine perfection are positively addictive. Incidentally, one of my writers showed me Pork Belly Hot Dogs. I realized that just because our original recipe is amazing, it doesn’t mean we can’t make it amazing-ier, or is it amazing-er? Who cares, neither are real worlds.  If you are one of those people that needs to see a handful of recipes before you can put your own spin on it, here’s another wonderful recipe from the Online Grill. 

Speaking of pork belly, here’s our latest pork belly recipe – Crispy Grilled Pork Belly Sandwich.

What Cut of Meat for Pork Belly Burnt Ends?

Pork belly is the belly of the pig and where we get bacon from. Salt or smoke curing pork belly turns it into bacon. 

Pork Belly Burnt Ends with Hot Pepper Jelly Ingredients:

• 2-3 lbs pork belly, cut into 1 inch cubes
• Your favorite barbecue rub, divided
• 6 ounces hot pepper jelly
• 6 ounces of raw honey (substitute regular honey)
• 1/2 stick of butter

Do you cut the skin off pork belly for burnt ends?

Yes, cut the skin off the pork belly. It’s tricky to making the skin super crunchy. Actually, it’s a huge ordeal and not easy to pull off on little one inch nuggets like this. Thus, if the skin stays on it will be very tough and almost impossible to chew. 

Pork Belly Preparation:

Crank the grill up to 275F-325F and while it is heating up, let’s prep the pork belly.

Cube the pork into 1-1.5 inch cubes and then hit them with some rub.

Next, work the rub through the meat, reapply and work it through.

Rinse and repeat to completely coat all the pork nuggets:

The seasoned belly ready for the grill:

Let’s stop right here and address the elephant in the room. We have to answer this question:

Are Pork Belly Burnt Ends Fatty?

Yes, pork belly burn ends are very fatty. The belly is where we get bacon. It’s mostly fat, which is what makes this recipe so good. It’s next to impossible to dry them out and, well, pork fat just plain tastes good. These are not the healthiest of snacks; accordingly, gorge in moderation. Whatever that means to you!

Pork Belly Burnt Ends Grilling Instructions:

For this cook, we used a couple portable pellet cookers.

One got a batch of pork belly burnt ends with hot pepper jelly and the other got a batch with the traditional recipe.

Here is our first batch that will get the hot pepper jelly:

Pro Tip #1 ~ Space them out so the chunks of belly don’t touch each other. 

If the chunks of pork belly touch, it will take longer to cook them and it will cut down on the amount of bark that forms on the outside. Thus, make sure to space them out on the grill grate.

We cooked these till they reached an internal temp of around 160F-170F.

Then, we pulled them out and put them into a disposable aluminum pan:

In fact, the pork belly should have a nice golden brown color to it:

Here are the rest of the ingredients for the glaze:

We have a couple different hot pepper jelly’s here, although use whatever you like.

This pepper jelly isn’t very spicy, so this is not a chili head recipe.

The flavor profile is more sweet than spicy.

We also used raw honey.

Cooking with Raw Honey

This was the first time I’d cooked with raw honey.

It was REALLY thick and evidently you don’t want to microwave to thin it:

Butter, butter, BUTTER

Add the butter and more rub:

Next up, get your hands dirty and mix the ingredients through all the pork cubes to coat them evenly (or use those nitrile gloves):

This can be done with tongs too, but it happens a lot faster with hands and is way more fun. 

Then get them back on the grill, leaving them in the pan:

What Temp for Pork Belly Burnt Ends?

So the question always comes, when to pull these off the cooker. It’s very hard to get an accurate reading from such a small chunk of meat. Luckily, we have a much better answer. The answer is when a toothpick or the probe from a probe thermometer goes in and out of the meat (not fat) like butter:

Pro Tip #2 ~ Make sure the toothpick or the probe easily slides in and out of the meat, and not just the fat

The ones above are not quite done. The probe went in and out of the fat like butter, but it got stuck in the meat sections.

Consequently, they went back in the smoker for a little longer. 

Then, when the toothpick went in and out of both fat and meat layers and the belly looked like this, we served them:

Be careful when eating or serving them with toothpicks.

These glorious nuggets, by nature of being pork belly burnt ends, tend to slide off:

Additionally, always make twice as many of these as you think you will need because people hoover these up like candy:

Pork Belly Burnt Ends with Hot Pepper Jelly Summary:

So which were better? The hot pepper jelly version beat the traditional recipe according to pretty much everyone in attendance the day we cooked these while on vacation in Northern Michigan. And I’m talking about 30 of us that went up for that family vacay. Hence, add the hot pepper jelly.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

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Recipe Card

Print Recipe

Pork Belly Burnt Ends with Hot Pepper Jelly

Pork belly burnt ends with hot pepper jelly: smoked belly slathered in honey, butter, and pepper jelly then smoked again until sweet, succulent and pillowy soft

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time3 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Course: Appetizer, Finger Food, Snack

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Barbecue, BBQ, Grilling

Keyword: Barbecue, BBQ, Burnt Ends, Green Mountain Grills, Grill, Grilling, Honey, Pellet Grill, Pork, Pork Belly, Pork Belly Burnt Ends

Ingredients

• 2-3 lbs pork belly cubed
• your favorite barbecue rub divided
• 6 oz hot pepper jelly
• 6 oz raw honey substitute regular honey
• ½ stick butter

Instructions

• Prepare the grill for 250F-300F
• Slice the pork belly into one inch cubes
• Season the pork belly cubes with the BBQ rub
• Once the cubes are coated evenly on all six sides transfer them to a ~275F degree grill
• Smoke for about 2 hours until the pork belly reaches about 160F-170F
• Remove the pork belly from the grill and place in an aluminum pan
• Add the butter, hot pepper jelly, honey and sprinkle with rub
• Work the new ingredients through until they coat evenly
• Place back in the cooker for 60-90 minutes
• Once a toothpick or probe from a probe thermometer will go in and out of the meat (not the fat) of the pork belly like butter, the burnt ends are done

Video

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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BBQ Grilling

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This article was initially published on: August 6, 2022