Homemade Pork Rinds
There’s a couple ways to make pork rinds, and it depends on the state of the skin you’re working with.
For skin that’s totally free of fat, you can boil and bake your way to crispy perfection. Just cut the skin into strips or squares, boil for 30 minutes, salt, and then bake at 375F for 15- 20 minutes, or until the pieces start to puff up. At that point, you’ll want to get in there and flip them over with some tongs (CAREFUL! They’ll be popping hot) and then bake for another 15-20 minutes or so, or until they are golden and puff-crispy perfect. Cool before enjoying.
If the pork skin you have isn’t totally clean, which is often the case (because skinning pork is hard to do), the melt-n-fry method is best. That method is outlined here.
Prep: Cut the skin into strips or squares, or both— pieces that would be fun to bite into.
You can salt the pieces, sprinkle them with Adobo or smoked paprika, or really any flavor you like. You can also leave them plain.
After that, arrange a single layer of the pieces in the bottom of a deep pan. I use my cast iron dutch oven, set over a diffuser that came with my wok.
MELT PHASE: Start low and slow. The idea is to melt the fat off of the skin to an extent, so that later you can turn up the heat and fry the skin in it’s own fat. I put the pot on the back burner of my gas stove, the one that emits the least amount of BTUs, and start everything on low.
Put the lid on the pot and walk away. You’ll hear the skins sizzling as the fat melts. Stir them every once and a while as you go about your life. A combination of how well the pot you’ve chosen holds heat, and how hot your burner burns on a low setting will determine when you need to step in and turn up the temperature for the…
FRY PHASE: When the skins are surrounded in melted liquid fat, looking glassy, and maybe a few here and there are beginning to brown, turn the heat up to medium, and put the lid back on. After about 5-10 minutes, you’ll hear the skins starting to fry.
Depending on the heat of your burner and whether or not you are using a diffuser, you may want to turn the heat up to high.
TIPS: The real trick with the melt-n-fry method is:
1) getting enough fat in the pan during the “melt” phase so that you can deep fry in it
2) getting the fat hot enough during the “fry” period to finish the rinds off nice and crispy.
During the fry phase, you’ll need to get in there and stir, especially on your first batch when there isn’t a load of fat in the pot, because the rinds might stick to the bottom. Be careful as you peek into the pot or take the lid off for stirring. Hot fat will pop and burn!
Fry those skins until they are bubbly on the surface, puffed up, and nicely golden. You’ll know when they’re done- it’s when they look like pork rinds!
Depending on how consistent the size of your skin strips are and how much fat they have on them, you may have some variation in the crispiness of your rinds. They might fall somewhere on a spectrum of chewy to perfectly crisp. As you learn, you’ll know how to adjust heat to get the right texture out of each batch.
Enjoy! They won’t last long!
