This is a must have recipe! So many uses for pulled pork, right? In buns, with coleslaw, potatoes, corn, in tacos, tortillas… I love to use it to fill some bread dough, or even brioche dough, and make little buns, like we often do during my bread making class!
On the picture below, we enjoy those Pulled Pork buns in the woods, during our last camping trip. I had cooked everything ahead, store the finished meat in a container and brought along a bag of coleslaw. We just had to warm up the meat and voila! Delicious meal in no time!
Make sure to use pork shoulder, no other kind. Boneless cooks faster and take less room in your dish, but you can use shoulder with bone, and add more cooking time. Don’t remove the fat layer before cooking, you can remove it easily after cooking, and skim the fat off the sauce. It is highly recommended to skim some of that fat, trust me, your sauce will just be better. I tried to skip that step one time, it was really over greasy.
The meat, once prepared, freezes very well, so it makes great leftover for an uninspired day
Here, we offer you several options, for the same amazing result; make your own BBQ sauce, or buy a perfectly good one from our store. 3 ways you can cook it: oven, slow cooker or Instant Pot. The slow cooker is my favorite, because I leave on all night and come back to the most tender meat! This is the method used in the recipe video, even though it is a pressure cooker, Instant Pot like, I used the slow cooking settings.
Star with this step: place all ingredients for the simmering sauce in a saucepan. Bring to a low simmer and let cook for about 30 to 45 min until thicken, stirring once in a while. You can adjust, at the end of the cooking time, the taste, with more sugar or vinegar or salt or spices. Set aside.
Preparing the pork
Rub the pork shoulder with the pork rub allover. In a large frying pan or dutch oven, heat up the olive oil on medium high. Sear the pork shoulder on every sides. Leave in the dutch oven if using for the rest of the recipe, or transfer your pork to a slow cooker or Instant Pot.
Cooking in the oven:
Pre-heat oven at 325 F. Place the seared pork shoulder and the simmering sauce (homemade or bought) in a Dutch oven or any oven proof dish with a lid. Cook for 2.5 to 3 hours, covered, basting the pork and turning it around once in a while. If the sauce is thickening too fast, add water or beer to it.
Cooking in a slow cooker:
Place the seared pork shoulder and the simmering sauce (homemade or bought) in your slow cooker. Cover with a lid. Cook for 6 hours or overnight, until the pork is fork tender.
Cooking in a Instant Pot
Place the seared pork shoulder and the simmering sauce (homemade or bought) in your Instant Pot. Cover and set to pressure cook setting for 45 minutes.
Finishing the recipe:
When the pork is cooked and fork tender, remove meat pieces from the sauce and into a large dish, let it cool until it is safe to handle. In the meantime, you can skim some of the fat from the simmering sauce and dispose.
When the pork is cooled, remove the large pieces of fat. Using 2 forks, shred the meat completely. Add the shredded meat back into to thickened sauce, warm everything up and serve! Add back the sauce in the pork and cook further on medium heat until reaching the desired amount of sauce for your meat.
Serve with some buns, along with coleslaw, mac & cheese, cornbread or fill tortillas with it!
Recipe Note
This recipe freeze well after it is finished and cooled.
If using a slow cooker or instant pot, your sauce would likely become runny, which is why you have to cook it further to thicken it again. When using the oven method, make sure to check your sauce is not getting too thick and starts burning. Add a little water if necessary during the cooking time.
