Pulled pork can be very cheap and easy. You can feed a crowd with very little effort. You can do it in the oven but the crock pot is even easier.
Pork shoulder was on sale. This one is about 5lbs and will serve a large group. It's sometimes called pork butt. It has a lot of fat in it but cooking it low and slow lets the fat melt and you can skim it off.
All you need is the pork and some liquid and flavour. I used Dr. Pepper for the liquid! It gives it a sweet & spicy flavour. I also threw in some chipotle peppers, an onion and some spice rub.
This is the spice rub I make to keep on hand.
Toss the pork into the crock pot.
Sometimes it comes with this net or string on it to keep it evenly shaped but that's not really necessary for this. We actually want the pork to fall apart.
So cut off the string.
And sprinkle the spice rub or some garlic and chili powder and salt over the pork.
Chop an onion into large chunks.
And tuck it under the pork. Also add some chipotle peppers. I used 3 for this because I didn't want it too spicy. If you like it hot you can use the whole can.
Pour 2 cans of Dr. Pepper over the pork.
Cover and cook on low for about 8 hours. It can even cook longer. If you're home you can flip it over half way through so all the meat is submerged, but if you're out you don't need to worry about it.
After 8 hours it'll look like this.
The pork is cooked but there's a lot of fat on the surface.
With tongs, pull the pork out of the liquid into a large bowl.
Now you can skim the fat off the liquid with a spoon, but if you have the time it's much easier to put the liquid in the fridge. The fat will harden as it cools and be easy to take off.
With two forks, pull apart the pork...
...until it's shredded.
Warm up the de-fatted liquid and pour over the pork. If you're doing this the same day you can add it back into the crock pot. Or if it's over night, warm the liquid in a pot on the stove and then add the pork to warm through.
You can serve this with potatoes or noodles or in a tortilla, but I like it as a sandwich on fresh rolls.
Heap the pork onto a roll. You can add barbecue sauce, cole slaw, hot sauce, whatever you like but I just had it as is.
We had this for dinner and I took it to a work pot luck and we still had leftovers. You can freeze the leftovers if you've got too much. Easy and delicious!
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