Gluten Free Hawaiian Kalua Pulled Pork

Slow-cooked pork shoulder wrapped in banana leaves is about as close to a traditional Hawaiian imu pit as your kitchen is ever going to get, and the results are genuinely stunning. The meat braises low and slow for eight hours until the bone slides free on its own and every strand of pork is soaked through with smoky, savory juice. Coconut aminos stand in for soy sauce here, which is the key move that keeps this completely free of gluten while still delivering that deep, umami-rich backbone the dish needs. A touch of apple cider vinegar and optional liquid smoke round out the flavor so it tastes like it spent the day buried in the ground, not sitting on your counter. The banana leaves do more than look impressive — they trap steam and infuse the pork with a subtle, grassy sweetness that you simply cannot fake with foil. Once it's shredded and tossed back through those rich cooking juices, it's the kind of pull-apart pork that disappears fast whether you pile it over rice, stuff it into lettuce cups, or eat it straight off the cutting board.

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