Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe Crockpot Pulled Pork. Cheap BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe Can Feed a Crowd. One of the best ways to save money on food is cooking at home using recipes that utilize an inexpensive cut of meat. The problem is that many people think cheap cuts of meat equals tough, or otherwise poor quality meat. This is not always the case. In fact, some of the cheapest cuts of meat produce the best tasting dishes youve probably ever had. Cheap foods can still be healthy, good and save you money. No, this is not traditional barbecue, which requires low and slow cooking with real smoke. While I do have a smoker and make traditionally smoked pulled pork, this is a great winter substitute, or simply a way for those of you without smokers to achieve a great pulled pork dish from the comfort of your kitchen. What Meat Do You Use For Pulled Pork' title='What Meat Do You Use For Pulled Pork' />Thats why today were looking at the pork butt, Boston butt, pork shoulder, or whatever you want to call it. Its a cut of meat that hardly anyone buys because its something you cant just whip together in 1. If youre a busy parent you may be thinking this recipe isnt for you, but youre wrong The magic of this dish is that it only requires a crock pot and about five minutes of prep work and it cooks itself. Even better, you can usually end up with over 5 pounds of BBQ pulled pork to feed your family for days or entertain a crowd for a little more than 1. How frugal is thatYou want a pulled pork recipe to establish your backyard barbecue fame Use your smoker, and follow this proven method the pros know. Its especially great for a super bowl party and if you pair it up with your own home brewed beer your guests will be sure to have a great time. For the working person this is an ideal crock pot recipe because you can literally dump everything into the pot before you leave for work in the morning, turn it on, and come home to the most tender and delicious pork shoulder youve ever had. Since you should ideally cook this for 8 1. Saturday so you have a no fuss meal ready for Sunday with leftovers to last most of the coming week. With smoke woven through shards of moist meat, potent bits of strongly seasoned crust mixed in, and a gentle splash of barbecue sauce, pulled pork is the most. How to make pulled pork in a crock pot for an easy and delicious meal. Note Basic cooking skills recommended. What you will need Equipment crock. Its up to you, but its impossible to mess up so dont worry about trying to time out the recipe exactly. I once  started cooking this and had something come up and the pork ended up going for nearly 2. It wasnt even a problem and tasted as good as always. Ingredients and Cost. Above youll see everything you need to make this recipe. Pork Butt, Boston Butt, etc. Around 7 total1 medium to large onion 0. A few cloves of garlic 0. BBQ Rub Seasoning 2 3. Liquid Smoke 1. 4. BBQ Sauce 3. 0. 0Salt and pepper. I want to talk about a few of these ingredients before we get started. First, the pork itself. What its actually called will vary by location. In some places its just a pork shoulder, in others its a butt, and sometimes even specifically referred to as a Bostom Butt. Regardless of what its called, its a hunk of meat from the top part of the front shoulder of a hog and in the whole form as we have here, usually includes part of the shoulder blade bone inside. This is what were looking for with pulled pork and it should be incredibly cheap. Heres mine. As you can see, we call it a Boston Butt up here. Youll also notice I picked it up for just a dollar a pound. This was actually marked down slightly because it was one day before the sell by date. Regular price was 1. Since this cut isnt very popular its not uncommon to see these sit on the shelves for a few days and then get marked down to try and get rid of them. If you keep your eye out and plan your meals ahead of time you can almost always snag one for really cheap a day or so before the sell by date. I also wanted to touch on the two other ingredients that may be a little confusing to you. First is the liquid smoke. If you recall from my award winning chili recipe, I use liquid smoke as part of a marinade. This is the same stuff and we use it in this recipe because were trying to replicate some of that authentic smoked barbecue flavor. Before the hate mail begins flooding in I do want to make a note that even though were making BBQ pulled pork, this is not authentic barbecue. In order to achieve that you need to smoke the meat for a number of hours low and slow. If you have a smoker and can do this yourself, then by all means do so. But for the folks who dont have a smoker or want to make something as close as possible from the comfort of their kitchen this is the next best thing. Finally, we have the BBQ rub seasoning. I happen to keep Stubs brand on hand in our house, but if you already have a favorite BBQ rub that you use thats fine too. If you dont have a pre made rub you can easily make your own with a few household spices you already have. In a small bowl mix in some salt, pepper, chili powder, paprika, garlic and onion powder. This is a real common mixture and it is a great rub to use on a lot of different things. Total Cost. So far our cost for this recipe is a little under 1. If you already stock onions, garlic, BBQ sauce and spices in your pantry youre e really only looking at the cost of the meat itself. I cant think of a cheaper meal. Preparing the Pork. Do you hate spending a bunch of time in the kitchen chopping and cutting food just to get it ready for cooking, which then requires you to stand around tending to it for another half hour Me too, which is why youre going to love this recipe. First, take the onion and few cloves of garlic and give them a rough chop. Just quarter the onions if you want. Nothing fancy at all. Now, just dump the onions and garlic into your crock pot. Go ahead and give them a good few pinches of kosher salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Thats it, were done with the vegetables already. Now you just need to season the pork. Give it a nice good coating of the store bought BBQ rub or your own spice mix. Dont be shy as its nearly impossible to over season it at this point. If you really want some flavor you can season it and then wrap it in plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge overnight so that some of the flavors begin to really get absorbed into the meat. That is totally optional, but also totally delicious. Drop the pork into the crock pot with the rest of the ingredients and its time to add some of the liquid smoke. This stuff is concentrated so a little bit goes a long way. For this recipe I usually use 1 2 tablespoons. We will be discarding the cooking liquid when were done anyway. To top things off youre going to want to fill it about two thirds of the way with water. Be careful and dont over fill it because it will get boiling and bubbling and you dont want to make a mess on your counter to clean. This picture isnt very exciting, but this is your porks home for the next eight hours or so. How long you cook this is really up to you. If you crank it out on high you can finish it in about 3 4 hours. Personally, I usually put it on low and then let it go overnight for at least 8 hours. On a few occasions I got busy and its cooked for 1. Were adding enough liquid that theres no real danger of it all boiling off and burning your meat so dont get too concerned about the exact cooking time. Also, for reference I believe this is a 6 or 6. Obviously, keep the size of your crock pot in mind when deciding how big of a piece of meat to get. After letting it cook for a number of hours this is what youre left with. A big brown juicy hunk of awesome. The only thing left to do now is separate the meat from the bone and most of the fat so that we can drain all of the liquid. So, go ahead and grab the single shoulder blade bone and just pull it out. The meat is so tender at this point it will slide right out. Once you remove the bone you can just take a slotted spoon or some tongs and fish out all of the chunks of meat from the crock pot and set it all aside in a large bowl. This is also your chance to separate all of the fat and everything sticking to some of the meat so in the end youre actually left with a relatively lean pile of meat. After youve pulled all the meat from the crock pot you can go ahead and dump all of the liquid, fat, onions, and everything that remains. Pulled Pork Barbecue Complete Instructions for Juicy, Tender, Tasty Pulled Pork. Pulled pork barbecue is different depending on what area of the country you are in. I am in the midwest so my instructions will have a westernTexas flair to it. Perhaps later I will include instructions for doing it the famous North Carolina way. Pulled pork barbecue is made from the pork shoulder but usually it is not the entire shoulder that is smoked but rather just the butt half of it. Veggie Medley more. The lower part of the shoulder known as the Picnic will work but is not as good in my opinion. Another common name for the pork butt is Boston Butt. These instructions will tell you how to prepare and smoke a pork butt so that when it is done it will literally fall apart with no pulling required and it will melt in your mouth just like butter. If you follow my instructions you will accomplish a great thing and everyone will be talking about your pulled pork barbecue for a long, long time. Find a Boston Butt at the meat market or grocery store that has lots of fat marbling and still has the bone in it. The night before you are going to smoke it, remove it from the package and wash it real good with cool water. Rub a nice thin layer of regular yellow mustard all over the butt. Mix up a batch of Jeffs Naked Rib Rub unbelievable flavor and rub it all over the butt making sure to work it all down into every nook and cranny of the butt. Put the butt in a pan with a lid and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Note you can put on the mustardrub right before smoking but it is better if you let it sit for several hours. About an hour before smoking, remove the pork butt from the fridge and let it sit on the counter while you prepare the smoker for smoking. Get a fire going that will maintain 2. Once the fire is regulated and the smoker is starting to put out smoke, place the butt in the smoker and leave it be for two hours. You can count on the pork butt taking about 1. If you have an eight pound butt then it will require 1. Making pulled pork barbecue is quite a long process but is worth every minute in the end. Pork shoulder is fairly forgiving so dont freak if you let it get too hot on you or you let it cook too long. I would not say that for brisket or ribs but pulled pork barbecue is another story. After two hours in the smoker, you will want to start mopping the butt with apple juice. Now many folks use a little brush or a very miniature tool that resembles a mop but I like to use a spray bottle so as to not disturb the crust that is forming on the outside of the meat. Regardless of the method you choose, mop once every hour beginning at the end of the second hour. Keep applying smoke to the pork shoulder until it reaches 1. Once the butt reaches 1. Place it back in the smoker and continue to maintain the heat at 2. Using a digital probe meat thermometer, monitor the temperature of the butt and let it cook until it reaches 2. Once it reaches this temperature, remove it from the smoker but do not unwrap it yet. Instead wrap it in a thick towel and place it in a tight cooler for about 2 hours undisturbed. After two hours remove the butt from the cooler, remove the towel and then open the foil slightly to let the heat escape. Once the heat begins to escape the juices will begin to redisribute throughout the pork butt. Note do no open the foil all of the way yet or the meat will fall apart without letting the juices redistribute. Allow it to rest for about 2. You can break it apart a little more if you like, place the pieces in a 9 x 1. Enjoy as is with my Goodness Gracious Sakes Alive BBQ Sauce or put it on a hamburger bun with coleslaw.