Instant Pot Kalua Pork

The Instant Pot comes with a small booklet of recipes, and in a cleaning frenzy, the SO and I rediscovered it after being proud IP parents for a year now. In flipping through, I found a few recipes that I want to try out (and will definitely be sharing here!), the first of which is...kalua pork.

The SO really enjoyed. Pork shoulder was pretty cheap, so we got many meals out of this, plus some frozen for later. Made me crave some poi.

Ingredients

• 4lb pork shoulder
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbsp liquid smoke
• 2 tsp Kosher salt
• oil for cooking

Methodology

Butcher the pork shoulder if yours came with skin on and a huge zigzag bone inside (sigh).

Set the IP to saute, and add oil when it reads "Hot".

Sear and brown all the meat on all sides. Remove the pieces when they are ready.

When done searing all the meat, turn off the IP and add the water and liquid smoke to the pot to deglaze all the toasty bits at the bottom.

Add the pork back into the IP ad add the salt on top.

Close the IP and set to sealing. Pressure cook for 90 minutes and use a natural release.

When cooking is done, remove the meat and start shredding the meat.

Keep the juices to moisten the meat/keep in the fridge to add extra fat to any other dishes you may make!

Results

Served with rice and some vegetables, this is a super east meal. Outside of the browning step, the rest is pretty much just set and forget. If you own a mixer, you could just toss the meat in there for the shredding step.

This freezes well too! We put it into those small plastic takeout tubs, and when we wanted to eat it, we just ran some hot water over the container to loosen things, popped it out onto a dish, spooned some extra juice (it turned to jelly in the fridge), and passed it onto Chef Mike.