Instant Pot Pork Shoulder

Pork shoulder is one of my favorite cuts of pork because it always cooks up juicy and tender and can go in a myriad of directions depending on how it’s flavored. The downside of inexpensive pork shoulder is that it needs a fairly long cooking time to turn meltingly tender. To cut down on the cooking time significantly, all you have to do is introduce it to the Instant Pot. 

Rub a fragrant spice rub over a pork shoulder roast; throw it into the Instant Pot with some sautéed onions, garlic, and water or broth; and let it pressure cook until it’s almost falling apart. This is a super-simple, basic way to cook pork shoulder in the Instant Pot, but feel free to riff on the spices and seasonings, as it’s quite a forgiving recipe that always yields great results.

The pressure-cooker setting on an Instant Pot cooks a tougher cut like pork shoulder meltingly tender in a fraction of the time it needs to cook on the stove or in the oven. Instead of a few hours, you can just let it go for an hour of hands-off cooking time. 

• Aromatics. Chopped onion and garlic form the base of the flavor for the cooking liquid.
• Spices. Cumin, chili powder, and cinnamon blend together into a fragrant mixture that infuses into the pork as it cooks.
• Pork shoulder. You can use a bone-in or boneless pork shoulder roast here; it’s sometimes called a pork butt or Boston butt.

1. Cut the pork first. Cut the pork into a few pieces so that there’s more surface area for the spices to infuse their flavor into. This also helps the pork cook faster than if it stayed in one big piece. If you have a roast with a bone, just cut around it or ask the butcher to do it for you.
2. Sauté the aromatics. Sauté the onion and garlic for a few minutes first before adding the pork.
3. Let it rest before slicing. If you want to slice and not shred the pork, let it cool a bit first so that it doesn’t fall apart as you cut it.
4. Flavor it two different ways. The cooking liquid is really delicious and can be added to the shredded pork to keep it moist and to season it more, but you can use your favorite tomato-based barbecue sauce instead for a more traditional pulled pork. 

You can serve slices of the pork shoulder as is, tucked into soft rolls for juicy sliders, or on top of salads or grain bowls. Shredded pork is great on nachos, in lettuce wraps, or stuffed into quesadillas. The pork freezes very well, so it’s worth making the full batch and stashing some away for future meals. Divide the pork into smaller portions first rather than freezing the whole thing together if you think you won’t eat all the leftovers up at once.