Kalua Pork in the Slow Cooker

Hawaii is a special place for my husband and me. We fell in love right after high school during a senior graduation trip to Waikiki, our first child was born at the pink hospital (Tripler Army Medical Center), we had two military tours on Oahu giving us eight years of kamaʻaina (local) status. It just seemed like a perfect choice to spend our Silver Anniversary in paradise on the island we have never visited, Lanai!

We spent a relaxing week lounging on the beach, hiking, exploring, eating local foods, and drinking a few mai tais.  Somehow they tasted so much better with a beautiful sunset in our view!

I felt a little guilty that we left our son behind (and daughter, but she’s in college and doesn’t live with us full-time), so before we left, I made my son a staple in the Hawaiian diet, Kalua pig.  He would have survived just fine with his bagel, cream cheese, flaming’ hot cheetos sandwiches, but since he is my meat eater I wanted to make sure that he ate something homemade for a few days. The traditional way the pork is cooked is to dig a hole in the ground, line it with rocks and add fire forming an oven, then add the meat and cook all day long. I have a MUCH simpler way to cook Kalua pork by skipping the fire-pit underground oven and using a crockpot instead!  Three simple ingredients is all you need; pork, sea salt, and liquid smoke. That’s it!!

Kalua Pork in a Crockpot

Ingredients

• 5-6 lb pork butt roast (also called pork shoulder)
• 2 Tablespoons of Sea Salt
• 1 Tablespoon Liquid smoke

Score meat and rub salt on the meat, then add the liquid smoke to the meat.

Put in your slow cooker on and leave it for about 12 hours (depending on your cooker, it may only take up to 8 hours). Turn it once. It’ll fall apart when it’s done.  Shred with a fork.

This is a great dish for a crowd.  I like to serve it with Hawaiian sweet bread like a sandwich.

I like to believe this dish brought good luck to our son. We just learned that he has been accepted to the University of Hawaii!!

I’ll have a mai tai to that!!

ALOHA 🙂