Since I don’t have the means to dig a hole in my backyard, I can only cook kalua pork with my crock pot.
At any Hawaiian luau, you’re bound to come across kalua pork. Traditionally you would cook the pork in an imu, pit oven, which gives it that smoked flavor.
To start off you’ll need pork butt, Hawaiian salt, and smoked liquid flavor. That’s it! Super simple. Rub the salt all over the pork and place it in the crock pot. Pour the smoked liquid flavor over the pork and cover the crock pot. Select low heat for 8 hours.
Halfway through the cooking process, flip the pork on the other side. Set aside a chopped cabbage head that you will add in 30 minutes before the crock pot finishes cooking the meat. Of course it’s optional to add the cabbage, but I like to get in some of my greens somehow.
Take two forks and start shredding the pork! It will naturally fall apart once you start pulling it apart. Tada! You don’t need to do anything special to it. Just serve it up on a platter with a side of rice and there is your kalua pork!
Video Tutorial
Check out this video to help you gain more insight on how to make Kalua Pork. Also, subscribe to my YouTube to help support me so I can continue making more of these contents. Mahalo!
Kalua Pork
Equipment
- Crockpot/Slow Cooker
Ingredients
- 6 lb pork butt or pork shoulder
- 1 1/2 tbsp Hawaiian salt sea salt works too
- 1 cabbage head (optional)
Instructions
- Rub the salt all over the pork butt.
- Add it to the crock pot and pour in the liquid smoke flavoring on top of it.
- Select low heat for 8 hours. Half way through flip the pork. Cut up a head of a cabbage and set aside.
- 30 minutes before the crock pot finishes cooking, add in the cabbage.
- Shred the meat with two forks. Take off all the meat around the bound and discard it. Serve and enjoy!
How much liquid smoke do you use
1 Tablespoon
I followed your recipe. It came out awesome. Thank you so much.
Glad it turned out well!
Aloha, Tani, I have a question about your recipe for the kalua pork? Can I possibly cook it a little longer then the 8 hours? Also, do you happen to have any recepies for poi?
Yes you can cook it longer than 8 hours. Just keep an eye on it to be sure it doesn’t dry out too much.
Hi! I’ve been doing this recipe almost monthly for my friends. I’m curious if I need to trim the fat cap off of pork shoulder/pork butt before cooking? It comes out pretty soupy which is great usually as we serve it over rice, but I’m wondering how to make it a little more dry and traditionally “pulled pork” looking.