Easy and Delicious Pulled Pork Recipe (2024)

I couldn’t believe my ears at dinner yesterday…..rave reviews. And not just a simple, ‘This is good, Mom!’. No, this was full on yummy noises and asking for seconds and going on and on about how good the pork tasted. Want to make it for your family? I’ll show you how to do it easily, and in JAM style….cook once, cook easy, eat several times…..so you can jam other more important things into your life!

Step one, plan it. You will need at least 8 hours start to finish, 6 hours of cooking time. Start out with two pork shoulder roasts, totaling about 6 pounds. These are often sold as ‘Butt’ roasts, which amused the kids to no end. Look for ones with the least fat possible.

I wait for sales, and was able to purchase these for $1.19 a pound. I bought 4, but only 2 fit in my crock pot, so I went with the two, the others wait in the freezer for another day. I could do this in the oven in my big turkey pan, and do as many as would fit for even more efficiency. Anyway, unwrap the roasts, and cut off the silly elastic thing. We’re shredding it, so we want it to fall apart. You can slice these at least in half, more if you are inclined. This will give more surface area for the rub.

Now mix up the rub.

• 1 Tablespoon Black Pepper (fresh ground is amazingly better)
• 4 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Salt (I like sea)
• 3 Tablespoons Paprika

If you like spicy, you can up the black pepper, and/or add a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. My kids enjoyed this tamer version….it still has a flavorful kick to it.

Rub a dub dub this all over the meat, and let it sit for at least 2 hours in the fridge. You can do the rub the day before if you like.

Now mix the mop.

• 1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Salt

Put the mop in the bottom of your crockpot, and put in the meat or, if you put the meat in there when you did the rub like I did, pour the mop down the side. You don’t want to rinse off the lovely rub. Add a little water if needed to bring the liquid up to about halfway up the meat. I set mine on Auto, which puts it on high for the first two hours, then on low. After about 4 hours, check it. It should be nearly to falling apart, and if you didn’t cut the roasts to begin with, this would be a good time to do so and stir things up a bit.

When everything is fork tender, it is ready. Pull the chunks out and place them in a large bowl or pot for shredding, using two forks to pull apart the meat. Eat as is, or drizzle with barbeque sauce. This made enough to generously feed our family of four, plus I froze enough for 4 more quick meals in weeks to come, and saved the mop/broth for a soup starter. So 6 delicious meals out of cooking once, all for about $10. The side dish is 50/50 mashed potatoes and cauliflower, plus we had fresh bananas and oranges.

We use regular sliced bread instead of buns, and this is my frugal tip of the day. Buns come in packs of 6-8, and are generally HEYUGE. Not only is that too much bread, but the bread is generally not very good for you, gets soggy (then wasted, since the kids won’t eat soggy bun), and is so large that you feel like you must pile on a lot of meat to fill it. Portions stay more controlled with the sliced bread, there are more servings in a package, I can purchase more nutritious bread, and I’m not keeping around a specialty bread, or having to remember to purchase buns. The smaller real estate makes our meat stretch further, since we don’t take as much and are usually satisfied with one serving, no matter the size of the serving. Ah, the psychology of eating! Hope you enjoy making and eating this dish, we sure have.

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