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Slow Cooker Kalua Pork with Chive-Lime Rice + VIDEO

This Slow Cooker Kalua Pork with Chive-Lime Rice will rival any Kalua Pork you might find at a luau this summer. The concentrated flavors and meat that melts in your mouth will have you making this once a week.

Slow Cooker Kalua Pork with Chive Lime Rice

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a relaxing, fun-filled weekend. The weather in Oregon is finally summery and every bit as warm as we were hoping for. The garden is finally in and the grill has been working overtime.

Have you ever had traditional Hawaiian Kalua Pork? Where the pig is cooked underground until it is melt-away delicious? We love going to luaus and enjoying the meat using this type of cooking method. But at home I can’t really dig a hole outside and cook a whole pig, so making this Slow Cooker Kalua Pork with Chive-Lime Rice is my favorite way to enjoy a similar flavor.

The pork is salted with Hawaiian “alaea” salt. It is an unrefined salt, pinkish-brown in color from the red alae volcanic clay it has been mixed with. My local grocery store has a small salt bar, if you can call it that, where I get mine. It’s also easy to find online.

Once you have the salt this is really easy to make. It cooks for a long time to concentrate the flavors and the meat just melts in your mouth.

You don’t add any liquid to the slow cooker and never open the lid…not even once.

I love serving this over rice, or throwing it all in a taco shell for yummy pork-rice meal. It’s also amazing as leftovers. Just throw the pork in a nonstick pan and crisp it up over medium heat. Yum.

I love making other types of pork in the slow cooker, especially this Slow Cooker Thai Pulled Pork and this Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Chile Verde. It’s such a versatile meat that can be transformed with so many flavors.

Slow Cooker Kalua Pork with Chive Lime Rice lovely meal
This could be your dinner! You will love it.

PIN THIS RECIPE HERE!

Slow Cooker Kalua Pork with Chive-Lime Rice
There are so many amazing ways to enjoy pork in the slow cooker. This Slow Cooker Cuban Pork is on my list to make along with these Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas. This Slow Cooker Caribbean Style Pork also sounds like something I need to try soon. And I can’t seem to get my mind of the sound of this Slow Cooker Teriyaki Pulled Pork.

Four years ago I made these Snickerdoodle Muffins and my kids still ask for them today.


Print Recipe

Slow Cooker Kalua Pork with Chive-Lime Rice

Recipe from: Created by Cathy Pollak for NoblePig.com | Serves: 8

Ingredients

Kalua Pork:

  • 1 (4 lb) pork butt (Boston butt) or pork shoulder*
  • 1 Tablespoon mesquite liquid smoke
  • 3/4 teaspoon Hawaiian alaea salt per pound of pork (I used four, "3/4 teaspoons")
  • lime wedges

Chive-Lime Rice:

  • 5 cups water**
  • 2 cups batsmati rice
  • 3 Tablespoons chopped chives
  • zest and juice of three limes, more for squeezing
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt

Directions

  • Rub pork butt all over with liquid smoke and sprinkle with Hawaiian salt, rubbing it in. Place salted pork butt in slow cooker on low heat for 12 hours. Do not open lid.
  • When finished, remove pork from liquid and shred with two forks. Taste the meat, if you feel it needs a little more salt, drizzle a few Tablespoons of the leftover cooking liquid over the meat and mix in. Do not shred the pork in the liquid in the slow cooker as it will end up too salty. Serve with extra lime wedges.
  • Before pork is done, in a large saucepan, bring 5 cups of water to a boil. Add rice, stir and turn heat down to low. Cover and cook rice for 15 minutes or until all the liquid has been absorbed. Add chives, lime zest, juice, salt and mix well. Serve with pork.
  • *For every extra pound of pork, add an extra hour to the cooking time.
  • **This water measurement is for batsmati rice only. Other rice may use less or more water when cooking.

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Comments

    • if you live in a warm enough place to have then outside, wrap the pork with either Ti or Banana leaves before cooking. If you don’t have them at home, look for an Asian grocery. They often have frozen banana leaves in the freezer.

      Reply

  14. Yum! Makes me want to host a Hawaiian themed party! I’ll be looking for that salt when I’m at the store tomorrow. Can’t wait to try it!

    Reply

  21. Oh what a delightful slow cooker recipe. Pulled pork is fantastic for the whole family and great for simple dinner party’s. Thanks so much for the tasty recipe 🙂

    Reply

  24. Would powdered liquid smoke be ok to use? What do you think about powdered -v- liquid smoke? I have never used it before so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Reply

  25. Just put a large (8+ pounds) pork butt in the crock pot for our Sunday meal. If it turns out well, I still have another large pork butt to make more.

    Reply

      • I cooked it for 18 hours (I have no idea what size my crock pot is, except to say it’s big) and it was so tender. My husband doesn’t like lime, so I made a drizzle of 1 part lemon juice, 3 part apple cider to put over top. My youngest (6 years old) even liked it!

        Reply

  26. What a great time to try this recipe. Pork is on sale right now in most of the stores. I just bought two pork butt roast on sale. So now all I need is the salt. I will try this later. Thanks again Cathy!!! 🙂

    Reply

  28. Just looking at this is making my mouth water!!! We JUST got back from Hawaii and this was one thing I wanted to recreate when I got home. Thanks for doing all of the work for me! 😉 Can’t wait to make it!

    Reply

  29. Am I missing something?? I looked the recipe over a few times but I don’t see Kalua as an ingredient at all….BTW, I LOVE, LOVE your recipes!

    Reply

    • Thank you! Kālua is a traditional Hawaiian cooking method that utilizes an imu, a type of underground oven. The word kālua, which literally means “to cook in an underground oven”, may also be used to describe the food cooked in this manner, such as kālua pig. This is a take on that recipe and method, no liquor is used.

      Reply

  31. Would a pork tenderloin work or is it too lean? The shoulder cuts looked so fatty, but I’m guessing that’s what gives it the “fall apart” effect and tenderness? I don’t want to try it with a loin and end up with a brick of sawdust.

    Reply

  32. I’ve made this several times and it’s INCREDIBLE! But now I have what might be a dumb question. I’ve always had a solid piece of meat in the past and now I’m making it tonight for a work pot luck tomorrow. The problem is the butcher (different than where I normally go) gave me a 4 lb pork shoulder but it’s not one piece of meat it was bundled with a mesh. I didn’t notice it until I took it out tonight. I took the mesh off but now I’m worried that it won’t cook the same. Should I be worried?

    Reply

  33. Just wondering, if a person is on a low low sodium diet due to heart problems what would you suggest? Do you tink salt substitute or Mrs. Dash be OK?

    Reply

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