This past weekend was Super bowl weekend and the perfect excuse to eat greasy pub style food. Grab the Tums because people all over were eating hot wings, nachos, and drinking a lot of beer. J and I aren’t really football fans. We are hockey fans so this super bowl thing really didn’t excite us. Instead we went to The Bay and registered for our wedding. Despite being trapped in a department store for 3 hours I made sure we had something yummy and sports worthy for dinner.

I had J buy a pork butt roast the day before so I could make pulled pork in the slow cooker. I have to say this is one of my favourite meals. Not really Sunday night dinner but oh well.

Around 9 am I rubbed the meat down with a simple mixture of dry ingredients.

  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 table spoon chilli powder
  • 1 tsp chipotle powder
  • 1 tsp or less of cayenne powder

Then I let it sit for 2 hours on the counter so it could reach room temperature, while absorbing the rub.  You could use any type of rub, store bought it fine. Use some of your favourite dried spices.

Once you’ve let it sit long enough then just toss that meat in the slow cooker. I browned the sides of mine but I am undecided if that is really necessary. Pour BBQ sauce over the meat.

I made my own BBQ sauce which was basically what I made last time I did pulled pork. I didn’t really measure so I just taste as I go until I like it. If you want to use your favourite store bought BBQ sauce then go right ahead! Measure out 3/4 cup of sauce and pour it on. I reserved some sauce to add later.

Then pour ½ cup of chicken stock in the cooker as well (optional).  I wanted to try this because I saw Bobby Flay do it on TV to his slow cooker pork. I suppose this braises it a little but it’s up to you. Now let it cook on high until it falls apart. We had a pretty big roast and it took 5 hours, last time it took 3 since it was much smaller.

Once it was done I took the roast out and the pulling began. It was so tender I barely had to use the fork in some parts.

I poured the liquid from the cooker into a pot and reduced on medium. If you didn’t add the stock you might want to skip this step.  Cooking it down will thicken the sauce and also concentrate the flavours.

The shredded pork went back into the slow cooker to keep warm while the sauce was reducing.

Once the sauce is reduced by half add it back to the pork and stir around so it’s all coated. At this point I added a bit more of the BBQ sauce I reserved earlier but you don’t have to. I just reduced my sauce a bit too much and needed some more. The sauce can be spread on the bun as well.

I added a bit of Mayo to the bun, topped with pulled pork and I also added some coleslaw. The coleslaw was a big mistake. We bought it from Save-on-foods and it was gross. Luckily the pork was phenomenal and wasn’t ruined by the slaw. Next time I will make my own or just leave it out completely.