How To Make the Best Pulled Pork in the Slow Cooker

This is tender, juicy, delicious, and versatile shoulder pork roast prepared in a Crock-Pot — not barbecue. If you compare this to hickory-smoked, pit-cooked, whole-hog barbecue, you might be disappointed.

But if you harness the ingenious method of braising pork in a Crock-Pot and add one extra step to ensure comparable flavor, you can come home to pounds of delicious pulled pork. Sauce it (or not) and then pile onto buns, drape over sheet pan nachos, roll into burritos, spoon over rice, stir into recipes, or simply eat straight-up. You will be overjoyed.

This pulled pork benefits from a delicious spice rub full of traditional ingredients you find in any good pulled pork. But rubs can rinse away in braising liquid, and with the longer cook time in a slow cooker, this is particularly an issue. To help the rub stick, the pork is briefly roasted in a screaming-hot oven before transferring it to the slow cooker. Now you’ve got rub that’s going to stay firm, and layers of flavor only searing can provide.

Tougher cuts of well-marbled and fatty meat — such as pork shoulder — are ideal for braising. Calling a shoulder a butt is not an anatomical anomaly. A pork shoulder is sometimes called a butt not because it brings up the rear of a pig, but because pork shoulders were once shipped in wooden kegs called butts. Whereas leaner cuts would grow tough and dry out, braised pork shoulder becomes incredibly tender and tasty.

Because slow cookers are designed to cook food at a consistent temperature for hours on end, they are an ideal vessel for perfect braising. To braise means to gently cook food in a little bit of flavorful liquid in a covered pot. Unlike pots set in or on a stove, you can safely leave a slow cooker unattended. You can even leave your house. Set the cooker to low; the high setting will boil the meat instead of braise it, so it’s only a quicker trip to an undesirable outcome.

Pork shoulder self-bastes and stays moist, and is nearly impossible to overcook. After the meat is done, the fat can be skimmed off the braising liquid. For even better results, refrigerate the pork in the braising liquid overnight. The flavors meld and improve, and the fat collects on top for easy removal. This technique reaps the benefit of the fat during cooking, but reduces calories and mitigates greasiness before serving.

It’s not enough to reach only a safe serving temperature when it comes to braising. Tougher cuts must be deliberately overcooked until the collagen breaks down. Pork shoulder isn’t ready to serve until it is tender enough to cut with a spoon and pull apart easily with a fork or tongs.

The delicious defatted cooking liquid keeps the pulled pork moist, but you can replace or augment it with a finishing sauce. Barbecue sauce is a reliable and compatible choice, but don’t let it limit your vision and creativity in using the meat. Pulled pork can go in many directions, so experiment with the dozens of ready-to-use finishing sauces and condiments.