The Best Tonkatsu You'll Ever Make (Restaurant-Quality)

Hi. [air whooshing] My name is Taka Sakaeda.

I'm a professional chef and I'm gonna show you

the best way to make tonkatsu at home.

We're talking everything you need to know

to make the most perfect, juicy, crispy tonkatsu.

[rhythmic music] This is tonkatsu 101.

So tonkatsu very simply is a pork tenderloin generally,

that has been breaded, and then, fried.

The word tonkatsu directly translates to the ton part,

means referring to the pork. [air whooshing]

And katsu is actually shortened for katsuretsu,

which is essentially cutlet.

Just with understanding a few techniques,

executing a great tonkatsu at home is very simple.

[air whooshing] [rhythmic music]

What I have in front of me here,

this is a pork shoulder [air whooshing]

or sometimes known as a pork butt.

So generally, tonkatsu is really made

from the pork loin or tenderloin.

I love to use pork shoulder here

because it is a lot tastier piece of meat.

It does have some connective tissue,

but it ends up with a juicier

and much more flavorful end product.

And so all this extra fat on the top,

I'm gonna go ahead and first trim that off

just so that we have a nice balance of meat and fat.

And I'm just pulling and tugging away at the fat

as I'm moving it.

Do not use any forceful movement.

I'm gonna go ahead and check the bottom here too

for any extra fat down here.

Or you can see a little bit of blood vein there,

so I'm just gonna go ahead and remove this little chunk.

Great, so I'm looking to cut just about a one-inch slice.

And after pounding,

we're gonna pound this down to about a 1/2 an inch.

So we all need healthy ways to relieve our stress.

And so this is one of my favorite ways.

And go ahead [tenderizer pounding]

and give it a good whack.

[air whooshing] Right now,

what I'm doing here is flattening the pork butt,

but also through this process of pounding,

I'm tenderizing the meat,

but also trying to hit these connective tissues

in between here so that it softens

and kind of breaks down the connective tissue as well.

We don't want it to get too thin.

Then the center will overcook.

And so we're looking for this nice about 1/2-inch thickness

is where we wanna stop.

One more step we can do here is,

wherever we see this connective tissue,

we can use the tip of our knife

and kind of just make some incisions here,

which will help tenderize

and actually make it easier to chew.

We're just gonna use salt [air whooshing]

and some pepper.

Essentially we're gonna dry brine this pork.

So the dry brining is great for seasoning the pork,

but also getting the flavor all the way throughout.

It also helps to tenderize and soften

some of that connective tissue,

as well as tenderize the meat itself.

And also, [air whooshing]

through that dry brining letting it rest overnight,

it'll create a little bit of a dry surface

on the outer layer which will help

to keep the panko crust very crusty.

I'm gonna take this pork,

put it on a resting rack and go ahead and put in the fridge.

Overnight will be sufficient.

[bright music] [air whooshing]

So I have this piece of pork that's been resting overnight.

You can see the actual flesh of the meat

has gotten a lot more deeper red.

I have kind of our breading station.

The flour, [air whooshing]

and then, the egg wash in the center here,

and the panko to my right. [air whooshing]

For the beaten eggs, it's just a couple eggs here,

but I used a little bit of water just to loosen it.

The big thing here is we wanna make sure

that it is fully beaten so that the whites

and the yolks are fully incorporated as best as possible.

So I'm just taking the pork here,

placing it gently into our flour.

The point of this process is wet doesn't stick to wet

and dry doesn't stick to dry.

So first step here is to dry the surface by adding flour.

And any access here, we're gonna go ahead and dust it off.

We're gonna go ahead

and gently put this into the egg wash here.

And again, we wanna make sure that this is fully coated.

This is really important for the finished product.

We wanna make sure that the panko

is fully encasing the piece of meat.

If there is any gaps,

they will allow oil to penetrate in between the layers

and potentially all of the breading will fall off.

Bring this over and I'm gonna gently bring

all the panko over the entire piece.

And once I have it fully covered here,

I'm gonna go ahead and give it a firm press.

And try to use even pressure all around.

And even getting the sides and making sure

that the sides are nice and coated as well.

Once it is fully encased,

we can go ahead and take this

and put this on a resting rack.

We're gonna go ahead

and let this rest for about five minutes.

This will really help and make sure that the panko

is adhering to the pork before we fry it.

[bright music] [air whooshing]

Anytime we're dealing with super hot oil,

we wanna make sure that we have a vessel that's large enough

so that there's no spilling over once we put the pork in.

And obviously, just always work cautiously around.

No need to rush.

Take your time and make sure, do not burn yourself.

For this tonkatsu,

we're gonna be double frying to make sure

that it's super crispy. [air whooshing]

The first temperature that we're aiming for is

right around 350. [air whooshing]

And because when we put something in oil,

it will decrease in temperature,

we're gonna just set the temperature slightly higher.

[air whooshing] The temperature right now

is reading right around 360 degrees Fahrenheit.

[air whooshing] So I'm gonna drop it in.

So once we put the pork inside,

we wanna make sure [air whooshing]

that we see bubbling right away.

That's another indication [bell dinging]

that the oil is nice and hot.

For this first frying,

we're gonna put this in for approximately two minutes.

This first stage is really to make sure

that the panko is now being fried and encrusting the pork.

If there's any excess panko in the frying oil,

I'm just using a spider here just to remove anything.

The stray panko will burn faster

than the panko that is on the pork

and will kind of taint the flavor of the oil.

This is actually looking pretty good at this point.

We have the panko is fully encrusted.

I'm just giving it a flip in midway through.

Once I have even coloring,

I'm gonna go ahead and pull this out and let this rest.

And just pulling it out nice and slow

also allows the oil to kind of release from the pork cutlet.

And then, I'm gonna let it rest on a resting rack.

And the second stage here is

really about getting the outside panko

really crispy. [air whooshing]

My thermometer is reading right around 380.

I'm gonna go ahead and lower the temperature

just a little bit and go ahead

and put the pork in for the second fry.

[oil sizzling] And this stage here

is just gonna be a couple minutes.

Biggest thing here is really we wanna pay close attention

to the color of the panko.

If the oil does get too hot or if it's in here too long,

you will get turning from golden brown

all the way into kind of almost a burnt color.

Another indication of whether the pork is cooked through is

the size of the bubbles that are coming out from the pork.

As the pork gets cooked, the moisture is being released,

and so the bubbles will get smaller

and smaller as we're cooking.

Now, my thermometer's right around 375,

is really where we want it.

So at this point here,

also we can see that the pork is now starting

to float a little bit. [air whooshing]

This is also another indication

[bell dinging] that the pork

is almost ready.

And so looking at the color, [air whooshing]

I think that we can go ahead [bell dinging]

and pull this out and gently putting

this on a resting rack, cool.

Right when it comes out,

I'm gonna go ahead and just gently season

the panko crust on the outside.

So the pork gets cooked throughout and you can hear,

[crust crunching] nice and crispy.

We're gonna let this rest and let it cool off a little bit

before we go ahead and slice it.

[bright music] [air whooshing]

Obviously we always eat with our eyes first.

And so we wanna make sure that when we're plating,

it looks beautiful. First thing we're gonna do here is

go ahead and cut the pork.

Since it is crusted in panko,

the technique we're gonna use here is

kind of like a paper cutter.

We're just gonna create a angle here,

and just go straight down.

The pork has been resting quite a little bit.

The juices are not spreading out, which is important.

If the juices are all spreading out,

that's obviously gonna get into the panKo

and soften the panko.

And so we can see here though

that it's nice and juicy still.

So typically in Japan, especially in the home,

everyone is buying this tonkatsu sauce.

It is basically a tomato, onion, many different vegetables,

and created into a puree to create the flavor for this.

The way I think about tonkatsu sauce is

the way kind of I think about ketchup also in America.

This is a product that no one is really making at home

and everyone is happy to just purchase.

So what I do have here is karashi,

which is [air whooshing]

a Japanese-prepared mustard.

It is a little bit different

from your American-style or European-style.

This has a lot more of a kick,

[air whooshing] but this is

a typical accompaniment [air whooshing]

and mixed in with the tonkatsu sauce.

We do have an accompaniment here with the tonkatsu.

This is kind of very traditional

that we have it with sliced cabbage.

So this is just sliced cabbage,

[air popping] some white onions,

[air popping] and some shiso leaves here

just to add some little character to the salad.

Just having the cabbage here adds a little bit of water,

and also, it helps to balance

and to counter kind of the richness of the tonkatsu.

So at this point, this plating is ready.

The last touch I'm gonna do here is

just put the sauce over the tonkatsu.

And there you have it.

The best way to make tonkatsu.

Gonna go ahead and take a nice center piece here.

[crunching] Mm!

The crust is nice and crispy.

The panko is nice and dry.

The texture of the meat from the dry brining

is nice and tender, beautifully juicy,

and intensely pork flavor, which I love.

So the tonkatsu sauce mixed with a little bit

of karashi has a little zing,

helps to balance out kind of the richness also in the pork.

Knowing how to make any kind of katsu

I think is a great skill to have.

This is relatively easy to do at home and the results

are fantastic. [rhythmic music]