Grilled Pork Skewers / Thịt Nướng

Vietnamese cuisine is renowned for its vibrant flavors, fresh ingredients, and delightful balance of sweet, salty, and savory tastes. One dish that perfectly encapsulates these characteristics is Thit Nuong or Grilled Pork Skewers, a popular staple at Vietnamese restaurants, street food stalls, and delis! The skewer features thinly sliced pork marinated in a fragrant blend of lemongrass, soy, and seasonings. The pork is then grilled to perfection, achieving an incredible char that enhances its savory and sweet flavor profile. Often served with rice, vermicelli noodles, a banh mi sandwich, or on its own as an appetizer, that nuong is a versatile and beloved dish that brings the authentic taste of Vietnam to your table. My recipe breaks it down into 3 easy steps!

Preparing the pork shoulder

The first step in making our thit nuong is cutting our pork shoulder. For these skewers, we want the pork to be cut thin against the grain to ensure they cook evenly and stay super tender. The pro tip in cutting your pork evenly is partially freezing it for a few hours before cutting. By partially freezing the pork, it’s proteins will firm up, making it easier to cut.

Alternatively, you can save a ton of time by asking your butcher to cut it up for you! If you don’t have access to a butcher, thinly sliced pork is widely available in the freezer section of your local Asian grocery store alongside other hot pot/shabu meats.

Once you have the thinly sliced pork, we’ll marinate it! This recipe uses a blend of lemongrass, soy, fish sauce, and honey. These grilled pork skewers have a delicate blend of sweet, savory, and salty – all in one bite!

Getting the pork onto the Skewer

Unlike shish kabobs, where the meat is cut into a cube, and you only have to poke the meat through once, these thin slices are slightly different. When adding the pork onto the skewer, you’ll slide the meat through in multiple places to ensure no pork dangling loosely off the skewer. (Refer to 03:58 of my full video to see how it’s done in detail.)

Grilling the thit nuong

One of the best parts of these skewers is the smokey char achieved by grilling them. I like setting my grill to a medium heat setting to cook these through. This is important because the marinade’s sugar content is high, so we want to ensure that the sugars don’t caramelize and burn before the pork can cook through. This takes about 7-8 minutes on each side, and right before they’re done, I like cranking the heat too high to get some really nice color on the pork.

Every grill is different, so you’ll just want to cook the pork to at least a safe internal temp of 145F. However, I actually like cooking these skewers until they reach 175-180F.

If you don’t have access to a grill, you can also bake these at 375F for 15-20 minutes, then broil on high for 1 minute.