Kalua-Style Smoked Pork for Camp
Slow-cooked pork butt with garlic, liquid smoke, and Hawaiian salt, dried at home and rehydrated in a pot.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 113
- protein
- 42 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- 400 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Car camping
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Pork butt | 4-6 lb | yields roughly 8 trail servings after drying |
|---|---|---|
| Garlic cloves | 6 | peeled, pushed into slits in the roast |
| Liquid smoke | 1 tbsp | |
| Hawaiian smoked salt | 1 tbsp | coarse alaea or smoked sea salt |
| Instant white rice | 1 cup per serving | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp per serving | dropper bottle; the drying strips the fat out |
Method
- At home: cut slits in the pork butt, bury a garlic clove in each, pour the liquid smoke over, and rub the salt in. Slow cook covered on low until it pulls apart with a fork, 8 to 10 hours.
- Shred it, then rinse the shreds in hot water to strip the fat. Fat is what turns dried meat rancid.
- Dry the shreds at 145F for 6 to 8 hours until they are hard and snap rather than bend. Portion into bags with the rice.
- In camp: boil 400 ml of water, add one bag, stir once, and pull it off the heat.
- Cover and wait ten minutes. The pork rehydrates slower than the rice, so do not eat it early.
- Stir in the oil and eat out of the pot.
Kalua pork is an imu pit compressed into a slow cooker: smoke from a bottle, salt with real minerals in it, and enough time that the collagen gives up. None of that happens on trail, so the cooking is home work. The pot at camp is only doing rehydration.
The rinse step matters more than it sounds. Pork butt is a fatty cut, and fat does not dehydrate, it just sits there and goes off in your pack. Washing the shreds and adding oil back at dinner separates the two problems: keeping the meat stable and getting the calories in.
Packing
One bag per dinner: dried pork and instant rice together. Oil rides in its own bottle. Vacuum seal the bags if you have the machine and any trip over four days.
Variations
- Dried cabbage flakes added at the boil bring it closer to the plate lunch version.
- Powdered coconut milk stirred into the rice off the heat adds fat and richness.
- Skip the rice and pack tortillas instead, rehydrating the pork in 150 ml of water.
https://homeandkind.com/blogs/food-recipes/easy-slow-cooker-kalua-pork-recipe