Smoked Kalua Pork: Hawaiian Pulled Pork

Last Updated on April 4, 2024 by Carne Diem

Protein:

Origin: Taste of the Islands

Method: Smoker

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Kalua pork is the centerpiece of any good Hawaiian luau. Typically, this Hawaiian pulled pork is a result of slow roasting a whole hog for hours in an underground oven called an imu. The whole pig is wrapped in layers of cloth, banana and ti leaves and lowered unto the underground pit with hot stones and coals. It is then buried and allowed to steam for hours resulting in a perfectly tender and juicy Hawaiian pork that is so tender you can shred it with your fingers.

Fortunately, you do not need to travel halfway across the Pacific Ocean to replicate this traditional Hawaiian kalua pig recipe at home. Our Kalua Style Pork is made at home on your BBQ grill or smoker and is a super simple recipe to make.  This smoked kalua pork recipe provides a much more authentic flavor to the traditional Hawaiian recipe that recipes that take short cuts like using a crock pot, instant pot, or worst yet, using liquid smoke. 

Making the Kalua Style Pork at home

You only need a few ingredients to make this luau style, pulled pork recipe. You will need a pork shoulder or pork butt, red Hawaiian salt, a little bit of olive oil, and some banana or ti leaves for wrapping the pork.

Either boneless or bone-in pork shoulder or pork butt can be used for the recipe, depending on your preference. The recipe is also easily adjustable depending on how many people you want to serve. In general, you can figure about ⅓ to ½ a pound of Hawaiian pulled pork per person. Thus, a 4-pound pork butt should be enough to serve about 8-12 people.

Trim the pork shoulder and season with salt

Trim any excess fat from the exterior of the pork butt and then move to a pan. Pork butt has a lot of intramuscular fat so try to trim most of the exterior fat off of the Boston butt.

Kalua pork is traditionally rubbed down with Alaea Sea salt. This Hawaiian red sea salt gets its red color from a rich volcanic clay known as Alaea. Alaea is rich in iron oxide which give the salt, and thus the pork, its rich red color. This salt is typically available at stores like World Market, or you can find Alaea salt on Amazon.

You will want to rub the pork down with a little bit of the olive oil, then use about ¾ teaspoon-1 teaspoon per pound of meat of the Hawaiian sea salt. For example, for a 5-pound pork butt we typically use about 1.5 tablespoons of the red salt. You do not need a lot of oil, just enough to lightly coat the pork and help the salt adhere.

Cooking the Hawaiian Kalua Pork

When cooking the kalua pork on your grill or smoker you have a couple of options. Our favorite method is to let the pork butt smoke a little bit before wrapping it up in the banana leaves to get a nice smoky flavor on the delicious kalua pork. Traditionally Hawaiian Kalua Pork is wrapped up tight and steamed in the ti and banana leaves with very little smoke flavor, so make it according to your preference.

Preheat your smoker to 250 degrees and set up for indirect heat. Smoke the pork until it reaches an internal temperature of the pork reaches about 160 degrees. Cooking time will vary, but this typically takes about 3-4 hours for a 5-pound pork butt. Larger pork butts will take longer. At this point you will want to proceed to wrapping the kalua pork.

Wrap the kalua pork in the banana leaves

Traditionally kalua pork is wrapped in a combination of ti leaves and banana leaves. We have never had much luck finding ti leaves on the mainland, so we typically just use banana leaves.

We typically wrap in a layer of banana leaves and then a layer of aluminum foil to hold it all together. Remember that traditional kalua style pork is basically steamed in the imo so the foil will replicate this. If you choose to avoid the foil you will want to wrap in several layers of banana leaves because the outer leaves will tend to dry out pretty quickly.

Continue to cook the pork butt to an internal temperature of about 200-203 degrees F. You are monitoring the internal temperature with a good digital thermometer, right? If you are not monitoring with a temp probe, the wrapped stage will typically take another 2-3 hours for a 5-pound pork butt. Again, the amount of time will vary greatly depending on many variables so please monitor your temp.

Rest the Hawaiian Pulled Pork

Once the pork has reached temp, remove the wrapped pork shoulder from the grill and let it rest for at least 15-30 minutes before shredding the tender pork. You can also place the pork roast, wrapped, in a cooler or Cambro for many hours if it is done before you are ready to start your luau.

Serving the Hawaiian Style Kalua Pork

When you are ready to serve, shred the Hawaiin pulled pork into a large bowl. Discard the banana leaves or use as a garnish or to line the bowl but don't eat it.

One of the traditional ways of serving Hawaiian pulled pork is as part of a plate lunch. The kalua pork goes great with homemade macaroni salad, and sticky rice. Wash it down with a Coconut Mai Tai or your favorite tiki drink.  Other great sides for classic kalua pork include Hawaiian rolls, sweet potatoes, fresh pineapple, or poi.

If you are craving a pulled pork that is packed with even more flavor, then give our slow smoked Eastern North Carolina Pulled Pork or Cochinita Pibil on your Grill or Smoker a try.

For a little more flavorful rice, serve it with some Caribbean Rice and Beans or Puerto Rican Arroz Con Gandules: Rice with Pigeon Peas.

For more recipes from the Hawaiian Islands and across the Caribbean give some of these tropical recipes a try:

• Grilled Hawaiian Ribeye Steak Recipe
• Karni Stoba: Caribbean Beef Stew
• Caribbean Coconut Rice and Black Beans
• Jamaican Jerk Chicken Rasta Pasta
• Grilled Red Snapper Escovitch
• Pina Colada Shrimp Skewers

Leftovers Kalua Pork?

If you have leftovers, wrap them tightly in foil. To reheat, place in the oven and cook, wrapped, until warm. For the absolute best way to store and reheat leftover meat and BBQ, vacuum seal the pork and then reheat in a sous vide to 145-150 degrees. This is without a doubt the most failproof way to reheat meat and is a great method for reverse sear cooking meat like our Sous Vide Florentine Style Porterhouse. A sous vide is one of our must own kitchen gadgets for meat lovers.

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