Thai Slow Cooker Ribs with Pineapple Slaw
This slow cooker thai pork recipe is so flavorful and fresh! Fall-off the bone turmeric (affiliate link) pork ribs are paired with a fresh and flavorful Pineapple slaw. This recipe is so easy yet will have everyone who eats it begging for more!
Thank you to the Iowa Pork Association for sponsoring this post. And thank YOU for supporting the brands that support me and allow me to continue to grow my blog. All opinions, recipe and photographs are my own.
Sometimes when I imagine dinner I have these grand plans of carefully crafted healthy, gorgeous, Pinterest-worthy meals, but then when it comes down to actually making dinner – moving beyond the “tried and true” meal is hard to do. Dinner time ruts are hard to get past – and for good reason.
When you get home at dinner time and you have a gaggle of hungry mouths to feed, its hard to move outside of your comfort zone to try something new. What if it takes too long to make? What if no one likes it?
This slow cooker pork rib recipe is one of my new favorites –
- 5 minutes to dump everything in the crock pot + 15 minutes before you eat = a 20 minute meal!
- It is full of fresh and flavorful ingredients, but its totally kid friendly at the same time!
- It makes amazingly flavorful and fall-off-the-bone tender ribs
How to make this meal:
This is an easy weeknight meal to make! For the full set of directions, make sure you scroll down to the recipe card below.
Make the ribs
- In a medium bowl, mix together the crushed pineapple, tamarind paste, minced garlic, minced ginger, minced shallot, brown sugar, 5 spice powder, chili powder and turmeric. Pour half of this into the bottom of the slow cooker.
- Place the ribs into the slow cooker (you might need to cut them into 2-4 pieces to fit in – just slide a knife between two bones and allow it to follow the curve. As long as it fits in your slow cooker, its fine!
- Pour the remaining sauce on the top of the ribs and throw in the star anise and lemongrass stalk.
- Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 7 hours.
- Preheat the broiler to high with the rack about 10″ from the heat source and allow to heat up while you mix the pineapple slaw.
Make the pineapple broccoli slaw
- In a small bowl, mix together the honey, apple cider vinegar, lime juice and pineapple juice. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the mint, cilantro, broccoli slaw, cucumber, green onion and pineapple.
- Drizze the dressing over the slaw, season with salt and pepper to taste and mix thoroughly.
- Set aside while you finish the ribs.
Finish and assemble the meal
- Line a rimmed cookie sheet with tin foil (seriously, don’t skip this step!)
- Carefully place the ribs onto the cookie sheet bone side up (the ribs will look really saucy and be very tender, so be careful!)
- Broil for 4 minutes.
- Carefully turn the ribs over so the rib side is down and the meaty part is up, and broil for an additional 9 minutes.
- Remove from oven and serve with rice and pineapple slaw.
Tips for making this meal easy:
Using a pre-packaged rainbow broccoli slaw mix totally cuts down on the prep-time here, plus its a great way to add lots of veggies into a meal. Go ahead and serve a big spoonful of this beside your ribs. Plus the flavors here are amazing – bright and complex – but it isn’t anything overly spicy or weird for kiddos.
Adding these easy to make Turmeric Pork Ribs is a great way to add a delicious and weeknight friendly dinner to your meal rotation to help get you out of that “chicken for dinner every night” dinner rut!
These pork ribs would also be amazing with a small bowl of this Spiced Coconut Potato Soup or Instant Pot Coconut Rice on the side!
Thanks again to Iowa Pork for sponsoring this post! Head on over to their facebook page for tons of awesome recipe inspiration and great information!
Try these other great Thai inspired recipes:
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Slow Cooker Thai Pork Ribs with Pineapple Slaw
Equipment
Ingredients
Ribs
- 14 oz crushed pineapple
- ¼ cup tamarind paste
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 1 shallot minced
- 4 Tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons Chinese 5 spice powder
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 Tablespoon ground Turmeric
- 1 ” piece Ginger minced
- 1 Lemongrass stalk
- 3 whole star anise
- 3 lb bone in pork ribs
Pineapple Slaw
- 2 Tablespoons fresh Mint chopped
- 2 Tablespoons chopped Cilantro
- 2 cups Broccoli slaw mix
- ½ Cucumber sliced into matchsticks
- 2 Green onions sliced
- 2 cups fresh pineapple chopped into small pieces
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon lime juice
- 1 Tablespoon pineapple juice
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, mix together the crushed pineapple, tamarind paste, minced garlic, minced ginger, minced shallot, brown sugar, 5 spice powder, chili powder and turmeric. Pour half of this into the bottom of the crock pot.
- Place the ribs into your crock pot (you might need to cut them into 2-4 pieces to fit in – just slide a knife between two bones and allow it to follow the curve. As long as it fits in your crock pot, its fine!
- Pour the remaining sauce on the top of the ribs and throw in the star anise and lemongrass stalk.
- Place the lid on the crock pot and cook on low for 7 hours.
- Preheat your broiler to high with the rack about 10″ from the heat source and allow to heat up while you mix the pineapple slaw.
- In a small bowl, mix together the honey, apple cider vinegar, lime juice and pineapple juice. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, add the mint, cilantro, broccoli slaw, cucumber, green onion and pineapple.
- Drizze the dressing over the slaw, season with salt and pepper to taste and mix thoroughly.
- Set aside while you finish the ribs.
- Line a rimmed cookie sheet with tin foil (seriously, don’t skip this step!)
- Carefully place the ribs onto the cookie sheet bone side up (the ribs will look really saucy and be very tender, so be careful!)
- Broil for 4 minutes.
- Carefully turn the ribs over so the rib side is down and broil for an additional 9 minutes.
- Remove from oven and serve with rice and pineapple slaw.
- Enjoy!
I love Thai food and these ribs have me drooling! Beautifully seasoned and that pineapple slaw is so refreshing and perfect to pair with these ribs… gorgeous!
I’ve been visiting family and friends back home for the past month and next week I return home. I can’t wait to make this recipe with the hubs as I know he’ll be all over these Thai ribs!
I love pork and fruit combinations and these pork ribs with pineapple slaw are something I would definitely love. Can’t wait to try this.
Tumeric with the pineapple slaw is such a good combo. I bet that slaw is good on so many things and so flavorful and fresh!
I love slow cooker meals but have never thought to make ribs in my slow cooker. Thanks for the suggestion, and I hope to try this out soon!
Such a good way to use turmeric. So many flavors in the dish. Looks so good.
This dish is perfection! I love the spices you use for the pork and the pineapple slaw is perfect to counterbalance the spicy, flavourful pork with some sweetness and freshness!
This looks so amazingly good! I like your tip about using a prepackaged slaw mix. I do that all the time. The kale and broccoli slaw mix from Trader Joe’s is my go to. Also, weird question, what font do you use?
Wow so many amazing flavours in this dish!! And LOVE that it’s made in the slow cooker, soo convenient!
Pork and pineapple slaw sounds perfect. The pork looks so tender and full of flavor. This is one meal my family would love so I’m definitely making this for dinner one of these days
I agree. It is hard to get out of a dinner rut. But I think I could get out of my pasta and potato rut that I am in with this meal! Love using my slow cooker, especially in the summer when I want to get out of the house and DON’T want to hang around the stove all day.
The pineapple slaw is so light and refreshing and pairs perfectly with the seasoning on the pork! So yummy!
Such a great way to use turmeric! And the slow cooker is so handy in the summer when I don’t want to heat the oven!
What delicious flavours! Love the slaw!
Yum! I love the slaw on top of this. Perfect for a dreary winter day to brighten things up.
The main dish sounds flavorful but you had me at pineapple slaw!
These look so flavorful! Yum!
Jenni, I think I could LIVE on that pineapple slaw. WOW! Love it!
I love how a simple and quick broil after makes it so browned! It’s a pain to brown meat before you slow cook it and i hate it when slow cookers dinners come out all pasty looking and gross.
This looks so summery and delicious. Just looking at the exotic ingredients I can tell that this tasted delish. I love pineapple and this sounds so yum…
Wow so many flavors going on! Been looking for more ways to cook with turmeric so this is great!
You’ve got a ton of flavor going on in this dish — and I love that it can be made in the slow cooker! Great recipe!
Love how fast this is to put together and that pineapple slaw looks so fresh and delicious!
I’ve been obsessed with Thai flavors lately! And that pineapple slaw.. oh my goodness, so colorful and fresh! Looks like the perfect pairing.
Wow. That looks sooo good!