A porous coating process is presented for solid oxide fuel cell electrodes that reduce manufacturing costs and production time. The process used aluminum as a pore-former for creating anisotropic mille-feuille-like porosity in plasma-sprayed 3.9 mol. % yttria-stabilized zirconia (3.9YSZ) coatings. After etching, almost no aluminum phase can be detected by X-ray diffraction and the porous coating hardness decreases to below 40 HR15Y. A porosity of between 44.5 and 50.4 vol. % is obtained in the etched porous plasma-sprayed coating. Most of the monoclinic phase originally in the 3.9YSZ feedstock powder is suppressed after plasma spraying.