This recipe is for homemade everything, which is a satisfying but potentially overwhelming feat. Feel free to use store-bought barbecue sauce or a ready-made barbecue-style spice rub. You may have leftover basting sauce, which you can use along with barbecue sauce to moisten any leftovers before microwaving. You can also freeze it in a non-metal container for the next time you make pulled pork!
Nothing, however, beats the transformation of this humble tomato sauce into something far darker and more complex, such as a true US-style barbecue sauce the black sheep of the sauce family, with various powders and liquors to make it a wonderful riot of sweet and tang.
Pulled pork is made from pork shoulder, which is also called “pork butt” although it is not the “butt” portion of a pig, in case that would weird you out. This cut has lots of connective tissue that gets chewy when cooked at high temperatures, so the low heat of the slow cooker is perfect to break it down into tender bites. It also has a lot of fat, which keeps it from drying out through the long duration. This combination makes pulled pork moist, melt-in-your-mouth and (it’s fatty, so…) delicious. The slow cooker transfers pulled pork from a backyard BBQ favorite to a crowd-pleasing, crowd-feeding indoor winter belly-warmer.
IngredientsDry Rub (Recipe Follows)6-8 pounds boneless pork shoulder (Can’t find it at first glance? Don’t be scared to ask the butcher! Also, 8 pounds will fill a large slow cooker right to the top, so if you have a relatively small one, go for 5-6 pounds)Basting Sauce (Recipe Follows)Barbecue Sauce (Recipe Follows)
Once you have tried this barbecue sauce recipe here, experiment to create your own signature sauce. Honey, molasses, smoked paprika, soy sauces and different vinegars will each give your sauce a unique character. Before settling on the classic addition of bourbon to spike my barbecue sauce, I tried Bundaberg rum and whisky, but neither worked nearly as well.
This is thin gravy made from deglazing the pan in which you’ve cooked your bacon or ham with leftover coffee from the pot and brown sugar. It works so much better than it sounds.