Pork Tonkatsu Recipe With Miso & Cabbage Salad

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This pork tonkatsu recipe hails from Japan via Austria. Japanese pork tonkatsu began life as Austrian weiner schnitzel, arriving in the 1800s during the Meiji period when Japan was opening up to Western influences.

The pork is coated in panko breadcrumbs - those lovely, jaggedy, light Japanese ones - and deep-fried until golden. And instead of a side of sauerkraut, it's served with crisp, cold cabbage and a sauce that's sweet and tangy with a umami miso depth that's distinctly Japanese. The contrast of temperatures and textures is rather brilliant.

I like it sliced and shared, perhaps with miso soup and rice. The cabbage isn't just there for show - it provides a fresh counterpoint to the rich, crispy pork.

For the cabbage salad Serves: 4

1 small green cabbage, very finely sliced using a mandoline
1 tbsp white miso
30g Japanese soy sauce
60g vegetable oil
10g rice vinegar
5g toasted sesame oil

For the pork tonkatsu

4 pork chops (125-150g each)
100g plain flour
Salt Black pepper, freshly ground
2 eggs
75g panko breadcrumbs
500ml oil for deep-frying, this should be an inch or so of oil in a medium to large pan

To serve

Method

Prepare the cabbage salad. Use a balloon whisk to mix together the dressing of white miso, soy sauce, vegetable oil, rice vinegar and sesame oil. Toss the shredded cabbage in the dressing and set aside.
Prepare the pork chops. Place the pork chops on a board and gently pound them with a meat tenderizer or a rolling pin. Trim any excess fat, cut out any bone, and use a knife to make five diagonal slashes in each pork chop.
To ‘breadcrumb’ the pork, arrange three shallow dishes in a row. Put the flour into one and season with salt and pepper; crack the eggs into the next, and beat lightly with a fork; tip the panko breadcrumbs into the final dish. One by one, dredge a pork chop in the seasoned flour and shake off any excess. Next, dip it into the egg-filled dish, and finally the breadcrumbs, so the pork chop is evenly coated. Place the pork chops on a board ready for frying.
Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan to 175°C – or until a Panko breadcrumb sizzles and turns golden when dropped in the oil. Carefully place one or two of the pork chops at a time into the oil. Fry for 5-7 minutes until golden and crispy. Use a thermometer to check that the meat is cooked. The centre of the thickest part of the chop should read 70°C. Remove the pork to rest on absorbent kitchen paper.
To serve, cut the pork into 2cm wide diagonal strips, arrange on a platter and drizzle with zigzags of Tonkatsu sauce or Japanese mayonnaise. Serve the cabbage salad on the side.

About the author

Nicola Lando is the co-founder and CEO of Sous Chef, where she has spent more than a decade sourcing, tasting and selecting specialist ingredients, cookware and tableware from producers around the world.

She trained at Leiths and later completed a stage at a Michelin-starred London restaurant, experiences that helped shape Sous Chef’s original mission: to give home cooks access to the same exceptional ingredients used by professional chefs.

Today, Nicola leads much of Sous Chef’s product sourcing and ingredient selection, working directly with producers and travelling internationally to food fairs, farms, mills and manufacturers. She tastes thousands of products each year and has built deep expertise across storecupboard ingredients, olive oil, condiments, spices, preserved foods and specialist cooking ingredients.

She holds an olive oil sommelier certification from ESAO in Spain, Imperial Executive Education’s Certificate in Nutrition for Health: Evidence-Based Tools and Strategies certificate; as well as studying Food Safety and Control at University of Greenwich.

Nicola also writes recipes and ingredient guides for Sous Chef, combining practical cooking experience with first-hand knowledge from producers, suppliers and specialist food makers. Her work focuses on helping cooks understand how to choose better ingredients, use them well, and get more flavour from their cooking.