Pulled Pork in the Slow Cooker/Crock Pot

In this Instructable, learn how to make pulled pork. This homemade pulled pork recipe is so easy to make in the Crock Pot and is so delicious. You can leave it plain and use it for shredded/pulled pork tacos, or add barbecue sauce for yummy pulled pork sandwiches. It feeds a ton of people as well!

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Follow the easy steps below or watch the video tutorial or do both!

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Ingredients:

• 4 to 5 pounds of pork shoulder, pork butt, or pork loin
• 1 large onion, sliced or diced
• 2 Tbsp of paprika (24g)
• 1 tsp of garlic powder (5g)
• 1 tsp of black pepper (5g)
• 1 tsp of oregano (3g)
• 1 tsp of salt (5g)
• 4 to 5 cloves of garlic, cut in half
• 12 to 15 oz of root beer, dr. pepper, or orange juice
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups of barbecue sauce, optional, leave plain for tacos

Tools/Equipment

• Slow cooker
• Forks
• Tongs
• Bowl
• Ladle
• Knife

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Begin by either slicing or dicing your onions. I like to do slices just because they are easier to grab with tongs and I like them in my pulled pork sandwich or tacos. But you can just dice them if you prefer.

Also, prepare the cloves of garlic by removing the skins and slicing them in half.

Take all the dry ingredients, the paprika, garlic powder, black pepper, oregano, and salt, and add them to a bowl. Mix it well with a fork or whisk.

The dry rub is ready.

Remove the pork from the wrapper and drain any juices. Then place it on a cutting board and pat it dry with paper towels.

Next, sprinkle about half of the dry rub onto one side of the pork. Rub it in with your hand. You can wear kitchen/food prep gloves if desired. And of course, if you are making it to sell, then you should be wearing gloves, as per proper food handling requirements.

Flip the pork over and apply the rest of the dry rub and pat it on the pork.

This step is optional, but I always do it. Something I learned 20 years ago. Take a knife and cut deep slits into the pork. Then take your garlic pieces and press those into each of the slits.

Otherwise, you can just place the garlic in the slow cooker.

Add the slices of onions (or diced) to the bottom of the slow cooker. Then add the dry-rubbed pork on top of the onions.

Pour the root beer, Dr. Pepper, or orange juice in as well.

Cover the slow cooker and cook. You have a few cooking options:

1 - Set on high and cook for 4 hours.

2 - Set on high for 2 hours then low for 4 hours.

3 - Set on low and cook for 8 hours.

When it is done the internal temp of the pork should be between 190F and 210F. (87 to 98C)

If you don't have a thermometer don't worry, if you follow the guidelines for cooking the pork it should be ready without checking it with a thermometer. If it shreds easily it is definitely read.

There will be lots of extra liquid in the pot which will be too much for the pulled pork. You can use a turkey baster and suck up the liquid and then discard or save it for gravy, or make an Au jus with it.

Or what I normally do is remove the pork with tongs from the slow cooker and put it in a large bowl. Then I shred it with two forks.

Next, take your tongs and grab those onions from the slow cooker and put them with the meat. Along with a few ladles of juice. You want to keep some of the juice because it will keep the pulled pork from drying out.

Mix the onions, juice, and pulled pork all together. And then it is ready. You can serve it as is for sandwiches and pork tacos or whatever else you want to use it for or add barbecue sauce to it.

Maybe you want to keep half plain and then add barbecue sauce to the other half, totally up to you.

I like to mix in the barbecue sauce with the pork as opposed to just adding a bit on top of it.

Now you can assemble a sandwich. Add a large helping of pulled pork on the bottom bun. Then add some sliced pickles if desired, followed by the top half of the bun.

There you go, an awesome barbecue pulled pork sandwich. Enjoy!

Keep leftovers in the bowl covered or in Tupperware in the fridge for up to 4 days. After that, you should freeze it in freezer bags.

This amount feeds several people 10 to 15 people or more depending on how much pork is used per sandwich.

Print the written pulled pork recipe here if you want.

Now watch those steps in action with this video tutorial. :)