My pull pork recipe guarantees an experienced, melted mouth tender pork. You will love our simple seasonings and easy oven method! This recipe is a goalkeeper!
This simple pull pork is a happy food. It’s perfect for crowds, parties and early. I love that it piles up in soft rolls, used as sliders, tacos, and scattered over the top of the salad.
This recipe calls for cooking pork in a low oven, similar to how we bake ribs. Lower oven temperatures and longer cooking times guarantee super tender meat. For this, I also love our slow cooker pull-pork, pull-chip sandwich, and if you like Tex-Mex, I highly recommend our Carnitas recipe.
Key Ingredients
- pork: Use boneless or bone-free pork shoulders as this recipe (sometimes called Boston butt or pork butt). It’s a tough cut and does a great job when cooked for a long time. It is also full of fat, which prevents the pork from drying out. When pork is cooking, the fat melts and basts itself during the cooking process.
- Brown Sugar and Spices: You will wipe the pork with our simple spices, made with brown sugar, salt, black pepper, chili powder and cumin.
- Garlic and tomato sauce: Garlic is infused with garlic as it is cooking slowly, and the tomato sauce adds color, richness and umami to the cooking liquid.
- Apple cider vinegar: Adds a slightly strong flavor and helps soften the pork. Without it, the pork tastes flat. Adding vinegar awakened everything.
- Fish sauce or Worcestershire: Select one or the other. They season the cooking liquid and add a umami umami flavor, which makes the pulled pork more delicious.
How to make pork
Cooking pork is low and slow is the secret to tender pork (as is the case with the pot roast and beef stew). When we use more marble-cut meat (such as pork shoulder), cooking at longer temperatures at lower temperatures ensures the hard cut of the meat softens and collapses the taste. The gelatin in the shoulder breaks down as it is slowly cooked, which is why it is slowly cooked on pork shoulders.
To make the oven-pulled pork, you can rub it all over with our homemade spices and apply it to each side in a large Dutch oven on the stove. Then add some water and all the other ingredients to the pan and carefully scrape as much as you can in the pan as possible (hi, taste!). You will then add the lid and bake until the fork is tender.
Pulling the pork in a low oven takes 2 to 4 hours (about 300°F). You are cooking until the fork is tender, so the cooking time may vary depending on the amount of your meat.
When the pork cooks, the fat melts. Before eating, we browsed some of the fats from the cooking liquid. The fat you lose from the cooking liquid is entirely up to you. I like to stay a little bit. You can then cut the pork into pieces or stuff the pork into pieces and do whatever you want! I like soft bread with creamy coleslaw or thinly sliced dill pickles.
Juicy oven-pulled pork
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You will love this simple pork with spices and comes with simple rubs, garlic, tomato sauce and apple cider vinegar. It turns out to be perfectly seasoned and melted in the mouth and is excellent in sandwiches, wraps, tacos and salads.
Made 8 cups
You will need
4 lbs boneless or bone shoulders, any twine has been removed
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1½ teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon fresh black pepper
1 tablespoon ancho chili powder or use mild chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 cloves and garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1 cup of water
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon fish sauce or 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
direction
1Adjust the oven rack to the lower third of the oven to make the large Dutch oven fit and heat the oven to 300°F (148°C).
2Make the spices by stirring 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 ½ teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 tablespoon chili powder and 2 teaspoons cumin. Then, rub it on each side of the pork to make it well covered.
3Heat one tablespoon of oil in the Dutch oven over medium heat. When the oil flashes, add the pork. Cook on each side for about two minutes until brown on all sides. Be careful that the sugar in the spice mixture will not burn. (See tips for not having a Dutch oven).
4Transfer the pork to the plate. Then, add garlic and 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce to the pan. Stir them until the tomato sauce turns from bright red to dull orange, about 1 minute.
5Pour 1 cup water, 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar and 1 tablespoon fish sauce (or Worcestershire). Scrape the bottom of the pan to release any stuck spots.
6Put the pork back in the pot and face the fattest side. Cover the Dutch oven with a lid and slide into the oven. Cook until the pig fork is tender, about 3 hours.
7Transfer the pork to the cutting board and cool until it is ready to be processed. Pull the pork with a fork or finger. Discard the bones (if there is one), any connective tissue and large fat.
8Remove the cooking liquid and then brush most of the fat from its surface. Discard the fat and set the cooking liquid aside.
9Return the pulled pork to the pan and add some or all of the reserved cooking liquid. Taste and season with salt, vinegar or fish sauce. If used, add the barbecue sauce.
Adam and Joanne’s Tips
- Bone and boneless pork: We have used both boneless and bone-free pork shoulders in this recipe and there isn’t much difference in flavor or cooking time. So use what is available. What matters is the fat, so buy the fattest pork shoulder cuts as this prevents the pork from drying while cooking.
- No Dutch oven: If you don’t have a Dutch oven, roast the pork and place the cooking liquid in a high-sided saucepan or cast iron pan. Transfer the pork and liquid to the grill pan and cover tightly with heavy duty aluminum foil.
- Fish sauce: Find fish sauce in most grocery stores, international markets or in international aisles online. It has a savory flavor that we use to raise the taste in dishes or dishes that have been cooked for a long time. For example, you see we use it in our homemade PHO recipes. If you don’t have anything, Worcestershire sauce is a great alternative.
- Why don’t my pork be pulled apart? You may need to cook pork for longer. If you have used a learner’s pork cut, consider using fatter, marbled meats (like pork butt or pork shoulders) as a lean cut like pork tenderloin won’t break down the same way, and with this Compared to the shoulders in the recipe, it will be hard.
- storage: Keep the pork in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days and up to 3 months.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
Nutrition per serving
Service size
1/2 cup
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Calories
154
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Total fat
7.1g
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Saturated fat
2.8 grams
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cholesterol
66.9mg
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sodium
510.6mg
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carbohydrate
1.9 grams
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Dietary fiber
0.3g
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Total sugar
0.9 g
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protein
21.1g
