Ingredients
- Spice Rub:
- 1.75 - 2.5 kg / / 3.5 - 5lb pork loin, shoulder/boston butt or scotch fillet, skinless (Note 1)
- 1.5 tbsp olive oil , separated
- 2 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 2 tsp thyme
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper , optional
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- Honey Butter Sauce:
- 3/4 cup / 225 g honey
- 125 g / 1/2 cup butter , unsalted
- 5 cloves garlic , minced
- 1/4 cup / 65 ml cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp salt and pepper , each
- Thickener:
- 3 tsp cornflour/cornstarch mixed with splash of water
Preparation
Step 1
Instructions
Spice Rub: Rub pork with about 1 tsp oil. Mix Rub together then sprinkle over pork. Pat to adhere all over.
Brown: Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add pork and sear all around until deep golden brown (don't let spices burn). Place pork in slow cooker.
Honey Butter Sauce: Wipe pan. Add butter and melt. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute until golden. Add remaining ingredients, mix, simmer rapidly for 30 seconds.
Slow Cook: Pour Sauce over pork. Cover slow cooker. Cook on LOW for 10 hours (Note 6 for oven, IP and pressure cooker). Check: Pork should be fork tender (Note 8)
Remove pork onto serving platter, cover loosely with foil (10 - 20 minutes rest).
Pour all juices in slow cooker into large saucepan. Add cornflour water mixture, mix.
Thicken Sauce: Simmer on medium high for 5 minutes or until it reduces down to a syrupy consistency (Note 2).
Slice pork into thick slices (1.5 - 2 cm / 3/5 - 4/5" thick). Serve with PLENTY of Honey Butter Sauce!
Notes
1. Pork cuts: This recipe is ideal made with pork loin, shoulder / Boston butt (boneless) or scotch fillet/neck, these are the 3 cuts I've make this recipe with. This is a highly flexible recipe that is ideal for any roast-size cut of pork, lean or well marbled.
Pictured in post with pork loin and shoulder. Even pork loin comes in all sorts of different cuts - sometimes just the eye (so it's super lean, looks like a fatter tenderloin), sometimes it's cut wider so you get some marbling the side which you can see in the first photo .
Needs to be made with skinless pork, trimmed of excess fat (don't want loads of surface fat melting into braising liquid which becomes the sauce).
Pork Tenderloin - Because it's thinner, make the following recipe adjustments: Use 2 tenderloins (about 1 kg / 2 lb total) and use the sauce as written (ie don't scale recipe down). Simmer the sauce for 5 minutes to reduce slightly then pour over tenderloin in crockpot. If tenderloin is too long for the slow cooker, cut in half to make 2 shorter piece. Cook on low for 4 hours or until the centre registers 63C/145F with a meat thermometer (this will be juicy sliceable, not fork tender) OR for 5 hours until the tenderloin is tender enough to pry apart with 2 forks (sliceable after resting but fork tender). Rest while you make sauce per recipe then slice.
Other pork - Am confident this can also be made with pork leg, knuckle and other pork roasting cuts but I haven't tried. Also a reader asked about Sirloin Tip - that would be ideal for this recipe.
4. Different pork sizes:
1 kg / 2lb - 8 hours on low
1.5 - 2.5kg / 3 - 5lb: 10 hours per recipe
3kg / 6lb: 11 - 12 hours
Use times closest to your pork size. Do not use for multiple tenderloins - see Note 1.
5. Sauce reduction: Reduction time to thicken dependent on how much juice comes out of the pork. Go by eye - when sauce is thin maple syrup consistency, it's ready (will thicken bit more when it cools a bit)
6. Other cook methods:
* Pressure Cooker - 1 hour 20 minutes on HIGH. To save time, this is how I did the pork in the 2nd photo in post.
* Instant Pot - Brown pork in IP, remove, melt butter and make Sauce in IP, then add pork back in, spoon over sauce. Then either cook using Pressure Cooker time or Slow Cooker time. Remove pork and make Sauce using sauté function.
* OVEN - Ideal for shoulder an scotch because they are fattier, not sure about loin because it's much leaner.
Directions: Rub pork with spice, do not brown on stove, place in roasting pan with sauce and extra 1 cup water. Cover, roast at 140C/290F for about 3 hours or until fork tender. Uncover and roast to brown the pork - about 30 min. Remove pork, transfer all juices into a saucepan and follow recipe to thicken with cornflour/cornstarch. There will be less sauce because there's less pork juices when you oven roast, so if necessary, top up with water to get the sauce consistency per video (like maple syrup).
7. MAKE AHEAD - I brown the pork and make the sauce the night before, pour it into the slow cooker then remove the insert and keep it in the fridge overnight. Then I put it in the slow cooker in the morning so it's ready that evening. If preparing ahead more than 12 hours or so, keep the sauce separate (because it will make the pork sweat).
Leftovers - Keep in the fridge for 3 days, or freezer for 3 months. I pour the sauce over it, it soaks through the pork and I love it.
8. Pork Doneness - Loin is a lean cut of pork so it's usually cooked to an exact internal temperature so it's still juicy on the inside. The idea with this recipe is that the pork is cooked beyond the point of well done (at which point is would be dry and bland) to "fall apart tender" at which point the meat fibres break down and are tender and they act like a sponge for the sauce when served.
9. Nutrition - per serving, assuming a 2 kg/4lb pork loin and 8 servings with all sauce consumed (which is unlikely).