At The Carbon Footprint BBQ in Kaneohe, Oahu, our pulled pork started with a simple question: What would happen if Southern barbecue and Hawaiian kalua pig ended up at the same cookout?

As it turned out, they got along pretty well.

Kalua literally means “to cook underground,” traditionally inside an imu, the famous Hawaiian earth oven. Kalua pig is tender, juicy, and salty. But unlike Texas or Southern style pulled pork, it’s not naturally smoky.  And, this is why many restaurants add liquid smoke after the pork is shredded.

This is where we decided to go a different direction, and we looked to our friends across the Pacific Ocean.

The result?  At The Carbon Footprint, we slow-smoke our pulled pork with real kiawe wood in a standard offset smoker, using low-and-slow barbecue techniques inspired by Texas smokehouses.  Our goal was to combine the best parts of both styles into one Hawaiian-style flavor bomb.

Now, we didn’t take everything from the mainland BBQ gods.  A lot of mainland BBQ, sauce drives a lot of their flavor. We love BBQ sauce too, but we wanted the pork and smoke to lead the conversation.   That’s why our pulled pork is designed to stand on its own before sauce even touches it. You can easily tease your taste buds by adding our Everything Sauce, and that’s when things start getting dangerous – haha.  We also pull our pork apart with our hands, we don’t shred it with bear claws, forks, or chop it up with butcher knives.   Traditional Kalua Pig is too stringy for us as well.  We like nice thick shreds of pork, so we have something to chew.  In that sense, we’re really different.

One of the best things about pulled pork is how versatile it is. Around Hawaii, pork somehow finds its way into everything, and honestly, our waistlines support this lifestyle completely.

Pile it over rice with brown gravy and suddenly you’re in local roast pork plate lunch territory. Stir fry it with cabbage and you’ve got Hawaiian-style kalua cabbage. Stuff it into tacos and Texas and Hawaii start feeling like backyard neighbors. Or stack it onto a soft King’s Hawaiian rolls with coleslaw and Everything Sauce for a proper pulled pork slider.

If you’re searching for pulled pork on Oahu, Hawaii BBQ in Kaneohe, kiawe-smoked barbecue, or a new take on Hawaiian-style smoked pulled pork, we’d love to be on your list.

Because Hawaii already knows how to cook pork.

We’re just adding a little extra smoke to the conversation.