Slow Cooker Cuban Mojo Pork
21 Comments Jun 16, 2024
Updated May 19, 2025
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This garlic and citrus Slow Cooker Cuban Pork (Mojo Pork) is tender and flavorful! Excellent, along with rice for a complete meal. Slow cooked to perfection and a perfect meal to change up your menu plan.
If you want to use your slow cooker for another Cuban recipe, try my ropa vieja recipe, or slow cooker cuban sandwiches for a flavor explosion!
This Slow Cooker Cuban Pork is an easy way to bring big flavor to the table with minimal effort. The citrus-garlic marinade gives the pork a vibrant, zesty taste, and after cooking low and slow all day, the meat turns fall-apart tender. It’s perfect for serving with rice and beans or piling into sandwiches for a delicious, versatile meal.
Main Ingredients
Here are the fresh ingredients you need to make this mojo pork. Find the full recipe in the recipe card below the images.
This Cuban pork recipe is packed with bold, citrusy flavor thanks to a mix of fresh lemon, lime, and orange juice. A large pork shoulder is the star, made tender in the slow cooker as it soaks up a marinade of olive oil, oregano, cumin, garlic, salt, and pepper. Onion rounds are added for extra flavor as everything cooks low and slow. It’s a simple set of ingredients that come together to make a juicy, flavorful dish with a tropical twist.
How to make Slow Cooker Cuban Pork
This one pot pork goes together quickly with thanks to the slow cooker.
Step One – Place the pork shoulder in the slow cooker and cut deep slits across the surface to help it soak up flavor. Whisk together olive oil, fresh citrus juices from the lemon, lime, and orange, plus oregano, cumin, garlic, salt, and pepper to make a mojo-style marinade. Pour it all over the pork, pressing the garlic and spices into the meat.
Step Two – Layer the onion rounds on top, cover, and cook on LOW for 10 hours until the pork is ultra tender. Shred the meat, discard the bone, and mix it with some of the juices to keep it moist. Serve with black beans and rice for a full Cuban-inspired meal.
What goes well with Mojo Pork?
Cuban Black Beans – Make a big pot of black beans to serve with this pulled pork, and you will have something great in the fridge to eat all week! (try my slow cooker black beans)
Yellow Rice – I find packaged yellow rice mix at my grocery store! It has a fantastic flavor for a packaged rice! You can make Spanish rice or white steamed rice if you can’t find it. Cilantro lime rice is another great recipe to make for this.
Fried Plantains – While the average home cook may not make fried plantains, you may want to try it out if you want the whole Cuban experience.
Lime Wedges – I like to serve Cuban mojo pork with fresh lime wedges; lime juice really brightens the pulled pork.
Mojo Pork Tacos – Yes, I know, this is not a Mexican meal, but you can make the BEST tacos with Mojo pork, just wrap the shredded pork and onions up in charred corn tortillas.
Featured Comment
“Delicious and easy to make. My dinner guests went wild over it!”
– Anonymous
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Slow Cooker Cuban Pork Recipe
How to Video
Ingredients
- 5 lbs pork shoulder
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil,, extra virgin
- 1 lemon
- 1 lime
- 1 orange
- 1 Tbsp. dried oregano , (leaf, not ground)
- 1 Tbsp. ground cumin
- 10 garlic cloves,, minced
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. pepper
- 1 white onion,, cut into rounds
Instructions
- Add the pork shoulder to the slow cooker. Using a small knife cut slits into the pork, about an inch down.
- In a large bowl add the olive oil. Cut the lemon, lime and orange in half. Squeeze the juice out of the citrus into the bowl. Add the oregano, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper. Whisk until combined.
- Pour the mixture over the pork roast. Using a spatula squish the garlic and sauce into the pork.
- Add the onion rounds.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 10 hours without opening the lid during the cooking time.
- Shred the meat with 2 forks and remove the bone. I left about half of the juices with the meat to keep it moist.
Sarah’s Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition info is auto-generated. This information is an estimate; if you are on a special diet, please use your own calculations.
More shredded pork recipes:
Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Pork and Pulled Pork Burritos are flavorful, easy options perfect for feeding a crowd.
Mississippi Pork Roast and Slow Cooker Pork Roast are both rich, tender, and great for hearty comfort food dinners.
For something with bold, sweet flavor, try Copycat Cafe Rio Sweet Pork or Slow Cooker Carnitas—both perfect for tacos, bowls, or salads.
Delicious and easy to make. My dinner guests went wild over it!
Would the 8 hour setting on the crock pot work also? I got it started too late for the 10 hour option. Thanks!
I would do 6 on low and the last two hours on high (or vise versa).
Do you think it will come out good if I add chopped up bell peppers and mushrooms in it
I think those are great additions.
Bell peppers don’t mesh with the flavor of this dish, and mushrooms aren’t something very common to Cuban cuisine.
Add this today….it was AMAZINGLY flavorful. I threw in the juices from my olives, and added some pasillo chilies that I had just fried for another recipe….definitely adds that smoky Mexico flavor.
EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT. I cooked on high in my crock pot for the 5 hours.
Mexican flavor in a Cuban dish is just disrespectful.
Made this and served it as a semi Cuban sandwich (minus ham). It was amazing! My house smelled delicious the whole day while I cleaned for the party. Served with fried plantains and mojitos.
How many does thus serve?
I served it as sandwiches for a group of 8 people and had plenty of leftovers
where would we find dried oregano leaves??? why not just use the powder???
Leaf oregano to me is easier to find than ground, it’s usually higher up on the spices shelves at the store (still in a jar, like ground). Ground is very potent and a tablespoon may ruin this dish. If you have to use ground, cut the amount in half at least. 🙂
Congratulations in not adding anything Hot like Habaneros, Serranos and things like that because we never, ever use them in our cuisine. I would double the garlic and cut the cumin down to 1 tsp as it would overpower the tastes and then be more middle eastern than cuban. As for the orange, if you could find sour oranges, that would be ideal.
Thanks for the tips Carlos. I will try next time.
What kind of rice did you use?
What other sides would you serve with the pork? Back beans, fried plantains?
Traditional Cuban sides include sweet plantains (maduros), yuca (a potatoe-like root), fried plantains, black beans with rice (white or yellow). Then, serve flan and Cuban coffee for dessert and you have a perfect Cuban meal!
I also agree with Carlos.]
I would also add 1tsp of smoked Spanish paprika.
You forgot the Cuba Libre.
I’ll be making this next week.
Thank you for your recip, bye for now.
Have a nice dat & stay safe.