Clean Crock Pot Pork Roast with Pineapple Slaw

I like to make a lot of barbeque stuff in my crock pot and I am always drawn to recipes that include liquid smoke as an ingredient. This is something I never really heard of so I figured I would throw it on my list and check it out in the store. When I did, I decided that it was not something I was comfortable feeding to my kiddos. It was full of corn syrup, caramel color and a bunch of other stuff I try to avoid as much as possible. I figured I would just make do without it. Because I never really used it, I never really missed it.

But lo and behold another thing I was dying to make and there it was again. Liquid smoke. Ugh. So I decided to first figure out if it was possible to get liquid smoke that wasn't just chemicals made to add smoke flavor to your food. I stumbled upon this little clip (skip ahead to 9:07 for the bit about liquid smoke) showing how Alton Brown actually made his own. So if it can be made....it can be made without chemicals and gross stuff right? In theory. So since I didn't have a smoker to collect smoke drippings from, I set out to try and find a liquid smoke that didn't make me gag reading the label. The stores here really only carried one or two options so to the internet I went. After some searching I ended up ordering some Cedarhouse liquid smoke from Amazon. It only had three ingredients: water, mesquite smoke and hickory smoke.

It turned out pretty awesome. The smokey flavor was really subtle and didn't overwhelm the flavors of the dry rub.


Here's what I did:

For the pork--

1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 cups stock (I used homemade chicken stock)
1/2 of my pork dry rub mix recipe (or your favorite dry rub)
Pork Roast (I used a 2 lb roast)

For the slaw--

3 cups of shredded cabbage
1 cup of broccoli slaw mix
1/2 cup of homemade mayo (or a clean mayonnaise)
1 1/2 TBS apple cider vinegar
2 cups finely chopped pineapple
salt and pepper to taste

Rub the pork roast down with the dry rub. Place in slow cooker. Add stock, vinegar and liquid smoke. Cover and let cook 8 hours on low or 4 1/2 hours on high or until pork is cooked through.

Combine cabbage,slaw mix and pineapple in a large bowl. In a small bowl mix apple cider vinegar and mayonnaise.  Add to cabbage mix until it is evenly coated. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I served the pork alongside the slaw but it really and truly would make a really awesome sandwich.

21 Day Fix Containers used:

1 red
1 blue
1 green
1 purple