Slow Cooker Recipe: Copycat Cafe Rio Sweet Pork
If you are lucky enough to live near a Cafe Rio you can swing by and enjoy one of my favorite comfort foods: a sweet pork burrito (enchilada style, of course). If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you are missing out but this recipe will solve that problem for you. Living in San Diego we have some amazing Mexican food but we do not have Cafe Rio so I’ve been trying to duplicate their sweet pork recipe for years. This slow cooker version of Cafe Rio’s sweet pork comes so close to the original that I finally feel like I nailed it.
I tried dozens of versions of this recipe before deciding to make my own. The biggest problem with the ones I tried is most of them use soda in them. They were good but it just felt weird to serve my kids food made with a caffeinated soda. I mean, I’ve chugged down plenty of soda on my own, especially since the twins were born, but I don’t usually give it to my kids. The recipes I found without soda just had no flavor in the end. So I set out to create my own and after numerous attempts, this one is packed full of flavor and soda-free.
Ingredients
- 1 pork loin (3-5 pounds)
- 1 T garlic powder
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1/2 cup dried onion (or 3/4 cup fresh)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 T chili powder
- 1 t white pepper
- 1 t cumin
- 1 T salt
- 1 can green chile
- 16 oz salsa
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
For the Sauce:
- 1 can red enchilada sauce
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 can green chili
- 1/4 cup molasses
Preparation
This is so easy to make. Combine the first 12 ingredients in your crock pot. Cook on low for 8 hours.
When the pork is tender enough to shred with a fork, shred the entire thing. Drain some of the liquid out. When this cook you get the meat juices mixing in and diluting the flavors. I leave all the chances of onion and peppers in when I do this but drain out the bulk of the liquid. Add in the last 4 ingredients then cook for another 15 minutes or until it is heated through.
The flavor in this is insane. It’s one of the few things I can eat for lunch and dinner several days in a row and not get sick of eating it. Serve this on burrito with rice and beans, on a tostada shell, on a taco, or on some killer nachos. It makes everything you put it on yummy.
What’s your favorite slow cooker meal?
Equipment needed:
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