Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

Sorry about the hiatus, I was on my holidays eating obscene amounts of pizza, pasta and gelato.

BUT I'M BACK BABY. And with a corker of a meal.

I am excited about this post. It's nearly the weekend, and this is the perfect meal to pop in the slow cooker on Saturday morning, to give bountiful meals all weekend.

I love my slow cooker because it takes large hunks of meat that I would normally be super intimidated to cook with, and turns them into tender, flavourful meals with almost no effort.

And when you have that big plate of delicious meat, you can go ahead and cook up whatever you want with it! I got three meals out of this, it was basically the best week’s dinners of my life. None of the dinners took much time to do, and the meat was the star ingredient.

Day one, we had quesadillas:

Tortilla wrap, cheese, meat, veg, fold over and cook. Dream

Day two, we had nachos:

Tortilla chips, meat, veg, cheese. Sense a theme?

Day three, we had bbq mac and cheese:

For this, I mixed the pork with homemade BBQ sauce, topped with mac and cheese, and baked in the oven.

Serves 6, or 3 separate meals for 2

Ingredients

• 2kg pork shoulder
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp mixed spice
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 onions, diced roughly
• 1 pepper, diced roughly
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 chipotle chilli
• 1 tangerine, quartered
• A few cherry tomatoes
• 1.5L chicken stock

Method

Start by marinating that hunk of meat. Mix together the spices and pour over the olive oil. Stir to form a thick paste and go ahead and rub that all over the pork.

I love measuring out my spices, so pretty!

Leave to sit for an hour or two if you have the time for that. If not, just stick it in the slow cooker once the paste is all rubbed on.

Place the pork in the slow cooker when ready, then top with the onion, pepper, garlic, chilli, bay, tomatoes. Squeeze over the orange juice and place the quarters in the slow cooker.

Pour over the chicken stock.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

When cooked, remove from the slow cooker and shred the pork with forks.

I saw a guy once shredding the meat by hand, with heat-resistant gloves. I want them.

If it’s a bit dry, add a little of the cooking broth.

Now, you have the meat base for some kick ass dishes. Dig in!