A Squared: Friday Finds: Slow Cooker Thai-Style Pork Stew

Friday, March 15, 2013

Friday Finds: Slow Cooker Thai-Style Pork Stew

I love finding a good slow cooker recipe.  And let's be honest, they can be really hard to come by.  I have to admit I find a lot of slow cooker recipes (soups aside) to be unhealthy... and a little gross.  Think about it-- almost all of them call for a can of cream of something soup, which is one of my least favorite ingredients.

When I received my slow cooker as a wedding gift I was SO excited to also receive the Cooking Light Slow Cooker cookbook along with it.  It is full of light an flavorful recipes like the one that I am sharing today.  This Thai-Style Pork Stew is not only flavorful, but it is also one of the easiest slow cooker recipes I have ever tried.  It only calls for a few ingredients and very little prep work is required so I was able to make the sauce, trim the pork, and slice the peppers the night before and then add it all to the slow cooker in the morning before work.

There's a lot of crushed red pepper in this, but the spiciness mellows during the slow cooking process.  I thought it was still plenty spicy when we ate it, but if you like more heat then add a little sriracha when you serve it-- like my husband did.


Ingredients:
  • 2 lbs. pork loin, cut into 4 pieces, trimmed
  • 2 cups (1 x 1/4-inch) julienne-cut red bell pepper 
  • 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
  • 2 Tbs. rice vinegar or white wine vinegar 
  • 1 tsp. crushed red pepper
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter 
  • 6 cups hot cooked basmati rice
  • 1/2 cup diagonally cut green onions
  • 2 Tbs. chopped dry-roasted peanuts
  • 8 lime wedges 
Place pork, bell pepper, and next 4 ingredients in a 4-quart* electric slow cooker. Cover and cook on high 1 hour; reduce heat to low, and cook 6 hours.  Remove pork from from cooker, and coarsely chop. Add peanut butter to cooking liquid in cooker; stir well. Stir in pork.

Serve stew over rice in individual bowls, and top with onions and peanuts. Serve with lime wedges.

Makes 8 servings.

*One of the cardinal rules of slow cooking is ensuring you have enough liquid to cook the meat in.  My slow cooker is much larger than this (6.5-quarts) and this recipe calls for a very small amount of liquid. I added about 1.5 cups of fat free low sodium chicken broth to the ingredients in the slow cooker. My stew had a more brothy consistency, but it was still delicious and kept the pork from drying out. If you'd like the sauce to thicken up more, raise the heat on your slow cooker to high when you remove the pork and cook for another 30-60 minutes with the lid removed before adding the peanut butter.


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