The slow cooker is great for those who do not have lots of time to cook immediately before they want to eat. This simple slow cooker pork sweet and sour recipe does not take long to put together and then just cooks by itself.
This was originally a Student Eats recipe (now called Recipes Daily) and I can see why with its simplicity. We have been looking at recipes that can utilise leftover meat from a roast dinner the day before. Therefore, our meat is already cooked. As per other slow cooker recipes it’s probably okay just to put raw pork in the slow cooker as it is left for so long cooking. Alternatively, as per the original recipe, you can seal it in a frying pan first.
Ingredients for Slow Cooker Pork Sweet and Sour
- Pork – I mean the amount you need depends on how meaty you want it and how many people. Or whether, you are indeed, just using the leftovers. Use your own common sense.
- Tin of pineapples and the juice. I just used pineapple rings and kind of chopped them up with the spoon as I stirred it. Obviously pineapple chunks would be less effort.
- Two tins of chopped tomatoes
- 3 spoons of brown sugar – whether you use teaspoons or tablespoons is again a matter of taste. Personally I would go for teaspoons. Additional sugar is not good for you and the pineapple juice makes it sweet anyway.
More Ingredients
- Squirt of Heinz tomato ketchup. The original recipe got changed so it was no longer Student Eats and they removed the word Heinz – but who eats any other kind of ketchup right? Think it was also worded to say tomato sauce. Use what you have. Not even sure how much difference it would make as it was such a small quantity.
- Pepper – personally I think if you have a yellow, orange and green pepper it will add more colour to the dish. Really it doesn’t matter on the colour. How much or little again down to personal preference. Chopped them into small cubes though. Alternatively, you could use frozen pepper – again taking the work out of it and saving you time.
- Onion – again I just used a handful of frozen.
- Ginger – probably about a teaspoon. Personally I just sprinkle some into the slow cooker.
- Garlic – you know I am again going to say it is down to taste. Probably about a clove. Fresh garlic is always better but you could also add the powdered version if you want to again save a bit more time. My garlic press is a relatively new toy though so I use that!
How to Cook
Super, super simple. Just put all the above ingredients into the slow cooker. Turn it to low and leave to cook all day. Around 8 hours.
Then add rice. You can get those handy pouches you put in the microwave even! Personally we have a rice pot. You simply measure out how much rice you need by filling the rice to the first line inside the pot. Then wash your rice in cold water. Next put the rice back in and add boiling water until the second line. You then place the lids on and microwave for 10 minutes. After this wait a further 10 minutes before fluffing the rice up with a fork.
Dish the rice up onto a plate and top with the pork sweet and sour sauce.
See also Easy Sweet and Sour Chicken Fakeaway