40 Minute Instant Pot Red Cooked Pork Shoulder

My mother-in-law first introduced me to Red Cooked Pork [Chinese: Hong Shao Ruo] back in the beginning years of my marriage. She mentioned it was one of my husband’s favorite dishes. Red Cooked Pork is a sweet pork dish, where caramelized sugar coats the pork while browning/braising, turning it a reddish color. Back in those days, I was short on time with a new baby and work, so hesistantly asked her how difficult and how long it would take to make. She told me that I shouldn’t bother. The dish required 1.5 hours of cook time, where you’d need to watch the dish constantly, especially at the end, so the meat doesn’t burn. Red Cooked Pork didn’t enter our dinner rotation until years later, when we figured out how to use the Instant Pot. Well, here’s to the Instant Pot for making everything easier and faster 🙂

Tips for Making Instant Pot Red Cooked Pork Shoulder

1. The meat of choice for the authentic Red Cooked Pork dish is pork belly. I prefer to substitute with pork shoulder because it is less fatty and more healthy!
2. I don’t like touching raw meat so prefer to just throw the slabs of pork shoulder into the Instant Pot. After the Instant Pot natural releases, I remove the meat and cut off the excess fat and cube or shred the meat. If you want to reduce the Instant Pot cooking by 10 minutes, you can remove the excess fat first and then cut the pork shoulder into 1-2inch cubes.
3. Be careful when you hear crackling sounds coming from the Instant Pot while “Sauteing.” There will be oil in the pot that won’t evaporate like water and it will pop out of the Instant Pot and burn!

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

40 Minute Instant Pot Red Cooked Pork Shoulder

Prep Time1 minute min

Cook Time25 minutes mins

Pressurize/Depressurize15 minutes mins

Total Time41 minutes mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Chinese

Keyword: hong shao ruo, pork shoulder, red cooked pork

Servings: 4

Equipment

• Pressure Cooker or Instant Pot
• Stainless Steel Bowl (optional, if making rice in the Instant Pot)
• Trivet (optional, if making rice in the Instant Pot)

Ingredients

• 3 slabs pork shoulder, about 2-3 lbs
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• ¼ C Shaoxing wine or water
• ¼ C water
• 4 hard boiled eggs optional
• 1 package tofu puffs or sliced marinated tofu or tofu knots optional

Whole Meal in One (optional)

• 4 carrots sliced
• 2 C brown rice rinsed
• 2 C water

Instructions

• Put all the ingredients in the Instant Pot.

  (optional Meal in One, if cubing the pork shoulder before cooking): Add carrots into the Instant Pot. Put the rice/water into a stainless steel bowl on top of a trivet in the Instant Pot.

  Cook on high pressure for:

  – whole pork shoulder 25 minutes

  – cubed pork shoulder 15 minutes

  Natural release for 10 minutes.
• (Optional) While the Instant Pot is cooking, make and peel hardboiled eggs. Use a knife and make slits in the egg white so that sauce can seep into the egg.
• After Natural Release, remove the rice and trivet, if needed. Set the Instant Pot to "SAUTE" to reduce the liquids in the pot. Remove any fat or bones from the pork shoulder, if needed. Shred the pork shoulder, if desired.
• The sauce should take 15 minutes to reduce.

  (Optional) You can coat the egg and tofu in the liquids while the sauce is reducing! Add the eggs to the pot and coat with the sauce. Carefully turn the eggs every so often, so that they don't stick to the Instant Pot. After about 10 minutes, remove the eggs. Add in tofu (puffs, knots, or sliced marinated) to the pot and coat with the sauce. After about 5 minutes, add back in the eggs and give everything a quick stir.

  At this point, turn off the Instant Pot.
• Serve with rice and veggies. Enjoy!