Our copycat Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Recipe is the real deal. The pork is marinated and slow-cooked to perfection in some surprising ingredients!
Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Recipe (Copycat)
This copycat Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Recipe, along with the other Cafe Rio recipes, is one of our most popular recipes on the site to date. We originally put this recipe on WAY back in 2007 and it has been the most popular Cafe Rio Copycat recipe on the internet.
Ways to use Sweet Pork
Slow cooker satisfaction
I love making meals in the crock pot and this is no exception. It slow cooks all day long and then at dinner time you have an amazing dish to serve to your family! It also makes the house smell SO good! I always make a ton of this sweet pork and eat it for days in burritos, enchiladas, salads, and even plain! It is so easy to do too. If you are short on time and want to skip the marinade step, go ahead. I have done it before and it has still turned out great! This cooks for a loooong time in the slow cooker, but because of differences in slow cooker heat, make sure you check it a few times along the way to make sure it doesn’t get too dry.
All Of Our Copycat Cafe Rio Recipes:
- Make Sweet Pork Burritos, check out the full recipe HERE. To make the Sweet Pork Salad, check out the full recipe HERE.
- To find ALL of our Cafe Rio / Costa Vida copycat recipes, click HERE.
More Cafe Rio Recipes from Favorite Family Recipes
- Our Version of Cafe Rio’s Chicken Tortilla Soup
- Salsa Fresca (Pico de Gallo)
- Cafe Rio’s Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette
- Our Version of Cafe Rio’s Sweet Pork Burrito
- Homemade Flour Tortillas
- Homemade Tortilla Strips
- The BEST Guacamole EVER
- Favorite Family Recipe’s Version of Cafe Rio’s Sweet Pork
- Our Version of Cafe Rio’s Cilantro-Lime Rice and Black Beans
- Cafe Rio’s Cilantro Ranch Dressing
- The Complete Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Salad
How to make Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Recipe (Copycat)
Ingredients
- 2 pounds pork (we use boneless pork ribs)
- 36 ounces Coke (3 soda cans) NOT diet
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- dash garlic salt
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 can diced green chilies
- 10 ounces red enchilada sauce (Old El Paso brand is gluten free, I like medium spiciness but any will work)
- 1 cup brown sugar
Instructions
- Put the pork in a heavy duty ziploc bag to marinade. Add about a can and a half of coke and about 1/4 cup of brown sugar.
- Marinade for a few hours or overnight.
- Drain marinade and put pork, 1/2 can of coke, water, and garlic salt in crock pot on high for about 3-4 hours (or until it shreds easily, but don't let it get TOO dry) or on low for 8 hours. .
- Remove pork from crock pot and drain any liquid left in the pot. Shred pork
- In a food processor or blender, blend 1/2 can Coke, chilies, enchilada sauce and remaining brown sugar (about a cup, you can add a little more or less to taste). If it looks too thick, add more Coke little by little.
- Put shredded pork and sauce in crockpot and cook on low for 2 hours. That's it!
Jared Drake says
THIS WAS ABSOLUTELY SPOT. ON. tastes amazing leftover too!!!!!
Erica Walker says
Thank you so much Jared! So glad you liked it!
Margo Haynes says
First of all, I’ve made many of your recipes in the past & loved the ones I’ve made. I have never been one for sweets. I have had bar-b-que in the past, but very seldom, because most of it tasted overly sweet. Once in a great while, I would find some bar-b-que that was balanced just right between the sweet & the heat & would have a small serving. Due to my lack of interest in sweets, I’ve never been concerned regarding diabetes & because diabetes has never been in my family. Imagine my great shock, when 8 months to 1 yr. ago, I was diagnosed with Diabetes 2. When looking at the picture in my mind I had already rated its deliciousness @ 5 stars! I actually thought about trying this delicious looking & sounding recipe, that is until I added up the grams of sugar in every ingredient in this recipe. While only using 1 can of coke in the marinade the others are in the sauce. I checked out every ingredient in this dish & a total of 673 grams of sugar are infused into just 2 pounds of meat & sauce for this entire recipe. This is the first bar-b-que recipe that I’ve yearned to make myself in more than 5 full years & yet I can’t! However, I’m also positive you have other scrumptious dishes within your recipes that I will still make & enjoy. Please do not refuse to publish this comment, all of us need to realize the dangers of consuming excess sugar. IF I watch carefully what I eat & manage to continue to get my weight down, I only have 80 lbs. to go, I can possibly rid myself of Diabetes 2. The reason I wrote this is the fact that I felt secure I would never have diabetes & yet I have it. Even Diabetes 2 can cause loss of vision & other serious health problems if not found, treated & corrected. Thank you for all of your wonderful recipes I’ve made & enjoyed over the past year or so.
Margo Haynes
Erica Walker says
Hi Margo- we appreciate your concern and we are sorry to hear about the health problems you and your family are experiencing. For this recipe, you can absolutely cut down the amount of sugar. Plus, a lot of the sugar is discarded with the marinade. This is a copycat recipe have made it to taste just like the Cafe Rio sweet pork. It is quite sweet. If you would prefer a pork recipe with much less sugar, we have a delicious Kalua pork recipe that doesn’t have added sugar. Hope this helps!
Ashley Campbell says
Type 2 diabetes isnt caused by sugar consumption. Check out ‘mastering diabetes’. Anyway, I have diabetes too and shared these concerns. Thanks for the comment.
Jennifer says
What size can of green chiles?
Erica Walker says
4 oz
Jennifer says
Thank you!
P Lenhardt says
I’ve never tried the Cafe Rio original, but was really excited to try this recipe. The name is not kidding. It is REALLY sweet. I guess I was expecting a little more spice (not sure why) and this was almost too sweet … I felt I could serve this at a child’s birthday party and all the kids would love it. I had to do something to add a little more depth so I added some ketchup … regular, and then a few shots of spicy (my mom swears by ketchup in her sweet pork and that felt safer than adding hot sauce which would’ve been unchartered territory). That helped a little but I was still a little worried serving it as a dinner but I paired it with the pico de gallo mentioned in the links somewhere and a little sour cream to cut back on the sweetness, and a lot of fresh cilantro and that balanced it out very nicely. My boyfriend had his in a flour tortilla bowl with rice, cheddar, pico, sour cream and pork, and he liked it a lot too. Grilled asparagus went well on the side. What went from being an “oh crap! I killed all that great pork with way to much sweetness” to a surprisingly good meal. Again, never tried the original version, so I can’t speak to that, but, we really ended up enjoying this. Thanks!
Echo Blickenstaff says
Whew! I’m glad it worked for the party! It is sweet. Balancing it out with ketchup was a great idea!
Mindy Johnson says
Tastes just like the original! I will only use the recipes from this site now for anything Cafe Rio!!! AMAZING!!!
Echo Blickenstaff says
Thanks Mindy! So glad you like this Sweet Pork recipe!
Jessica B Harris says
I had my doubts because the ingredients seem so random, but we love this recipe and have done it with and without marinade several times. A++ both ways.
Favorite Family Recipes says
So glad you guys enjoyed it! Thanks for taking the time to give us a rating!
Jill FIsher says
have you cooked the pork roast in an insta-pot?
Favorite Family Recipes says
We haven’t yet! If you try it, let us know how it is!
Andrea says
I have for one hour on the stew setting or med-high pressure. It turns out amazing! Perfect especially bc the pressure helps infuse the flavor if you didn’t marinade prior.
Great option for cafe rio at home!
Modesto says
Thanks a bunch for sharing this with all of us you actually understand
what you’re talking about! Bookmarked. Kindly also visit my website =).
We will have a hyperlink trade agreement between us
Shelby Lang says
Do you cook the pork for 8 hours on low PLUS an EXTRA 2 hours for the sauce or do you put the sauce in at the 6 hour mark with 2 hours left to cook?
Favorite Family Recipes says
You cook the pork for 8 hours on low, and then an extra 2 hours with the sauce. So 10 hours total. It is a long time, but totally worth the wait! The pork comes out so so tender and the flavor is amazing!
Zac says
I find 1 HUGE issue with this recipe, it’s so damn good you can’t stop eating it.
Barb Turpin says
I love it! I’ve made it twice now and it is so close to the Cafe Rio Sweet Pork. I put it in the crock pot about midnight, then shred it in the morning and let it cook in the sauce, then I don’t have to rush if we have company!
Leis says
Why can I not use diet? It’s all I have :/ I hope I didn’t ruin it
Kate Lyons says
I think the sweetener in diet sodas–usually aspartame–isn’t heat-stable, meaning if you cook with it, the sweetener breaks down and isn’t sweet anymore. There are some diet sodas that have stevia or sucralose that might be heat-stable, since you can cook with both of those sweeteners, as well as monkfruit, erythritol, and some others. I used 3/4 c. sucralose (such as Splenda) and 1/4 c. dark brown sugar and 2 cans of regular (not diet) left-over root beer today (I usually only have diet soda too.) We’ll see how it turns out.