I've never made pulled pork before. I've certainly had pulled pork sandwiches and have always loved how tender the meat was and appreciated the tremendous amount of flavor it contains. But I've never thought about making it because pulled pork is usually cooked in big batches, so obviously it has no place when it comes to just cooking for me and my boyfriend. However, when my boyfriend mentioned that he wanted to host a party, I immediately thought of making pulled pork sandwiches. What better way to feed a group of 10 (mostly guys) than pulled pork? It is easy, economical, tasty, and most importantly, it is all meat and nothing but meat - all my boyfriend's friends are carnivores.
The great thing about making pulled pork is that you don't need to buy expensive cuts of meat like tenderloin or boneless pork chops; all you need is an inexpensive cut of meat (i.e. pork butt, pork roast) because it's gonna be in the slow cooker for many many hours anyway. I got some pork butt and it was very cheap.
Note, there was no "regular" pork butt, just "supreme" pork butt....whatever that means hehe.
Although pork butt is cheap, my pulled pork wouldn't have been possible without my Mom's crock pot. My mom really has everything; from different spices, herbs, cooking utensils, kitchen appliances, to different kinds of flour (i.e. cake, wheat, all-purpose etc) all stored in the basement. This slow cooker was actually a gift from a family friend long time ago, but my Mom has never used it before, not even once. You can tell how old this slow cooker is from its retro colors and style =) To be honest I was a bit scared that it wouldn't work after buying all that pork (I forgot to test it out before hand), but whew! It worked like a charm. Talk about old school reliability!
As for BBQ sauce, I used what was in the fridge, which ends up to be the most boring kind - Kraft Original. You can definitely experiment with the many types of BBQ sauces out there - I'm sure it will turn out just as good, if not, better.
BBQ Pork for Sandwiches - adapted from allrecipes
(Yields 12 Servings)
Ingredients
- 1 (14 ounce) of beef broth
- 3 pounds of pork butt
- 1 (18 ounce) bottle of BBQ sauce
- Onions - enough to cover meat in slow cooker
Instructions
1) Pour can of beef broth into slow cooker and add pork butt. Cover meat with a layer of onion.
2) Cook in slow cooker on medium heat for 10 hours.
Pictures taken after 10 hours. The whole room smelled sooooooo good the whole time it was cooking. And when you lift up the lid, the pork and beef broth aroma would make any one hungry.
3) Remove meat, and shred with two forks right away.
4) Once all shredded, add in the bottle of BBQ sauce and mix thoroughly together. Refrigerate overnight.
Note: add in the whole bottle even though it may seem too much. The pork will soak up all the sauce later.
5) The next day, put back into slow cooker for a couple of hours to reheat.
The pulled pork was a hit to say the least, it was all gone by the end of the night. I think this pulled pork, along side the lasagna, are going to be my staple party food from now on =D