Beer-Braised Pulled Pork
- Preparation 30 min
- Cooking 3 h 30
- Servings 6
- Freezing Absolutely
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🐷 The best pulled pork I have ever eaten
I will say it straight: this is the best pulled pork I have ever eaten. It is rich and messy in the best possible way, and you will still be thinking about it the next day. Pile it on a bun with a slice of Swiss and a fistful of coleslaw, load it into tacos, drop it on nachos. It works every single time. And if you do not own a slow cooker, relax. This one bakes in a Dutch oven, and that is actually how I made it the first time.
🍺 A pulled pork sauce you cook first, then reduce
Most pulled pork recipes drown the meat in bottled barbecue sauce, or cola, or plain broth, and hope eight hours will fix it. Mine does the opposite. Italian tomatoes, garlic and onion get eight minutes in the pot, dark beer deglazes what stuck to the bottom, five minutes of simmering, then the whole thing gets blended smooth before the pork ever goes back in. The beer shows up twice: half a cup at the start, the rest in the reduction pan at the very end. That second pour is why the beer is still there when you taste it.
🔥 Three and a half hours in the oven, eight in the slow cooker
I sear the pork now. Big chunks, olive oil, salt and pepper, ten to twelve minutes until it is browned all over. It is worth every minute.
For the cooking itself, I have mostly stopped reaching for the slow cooker. Why wait eight hours when three and a half in a covered Dutch oven at 350°F pulls apart exactly the same? That said, the slow cooker version is written out in full below, low for eight hours, because sometimes you leave in the morning and you want dinner waiting for you.
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🔥 Sear the pork first
I did not do this for years. The raw roast went straight into the cooker and that was that.
Now I cut the shoulder into big chunks, season them hard with salt and pepper, and brown them in a good pour of olive oil. Ten to twelve minutes total, turning as you go, until every side has colour. Add more oil if the bottom starts to dry out. Pull the meat, then cook your tomatoes, garlic and onion in that same pot so everything stuck to the bottom ends up in the sauce. It tastes better. That is the whole argument.
🍲 The slow cooker version, in full
No oven? No Dutch oven? Nothing is lost here.
Everything is identical up to the blending step: sear, remove, cook the aromatics, deglaze, simmer, blend smooth. Then the pork chunks and the bone go into the slow cooker, sauce over the top and underneath, lid on, low for eight hours. Low, not high. High tightens the muscle fibres instead of breaking them down, which is the opposite of what pulled pork needs.
After that, nothing changes: pull the meat, reduce the sauce, fold it all back together.
🍺 Beer in two pours
Half a cup deglazes the pot, the rest goes into the reduction pan at the end. Beer that cooks for hours mostly disappears. Beer added in the last twenty minutes does not. Use a dark beer, a stout or a porter, or any dark beer you like. You are after roasted malt and brown sugar, not bitterness.
🥄 Two ways to know it is done
The meat is ready when a fork pulls it apart without any fight. The sauce is ready when it has reduced by half and coats the back of a wooden spoon, somewhere around fifteen to twenty minutes.
While you shred, pull out the big pieces of fat and throw them away. They did not render in three and a half hours and they are not going to now. Nobody wants to bite into one.
🫙 The sauce works on its own
Bought pulled pork at the store, or have some left from another recipe? Just make the sauce. Tomatoes, garlic, onion, beer, everything else into the pot, then blend and reduce. Pour it over any pulled pork and dinner is handled. It is just as good on shredded chicken or on ribs.
❄️ Leftovers, and there will be leftovers
Three months in the freezer, three to four days in the fridge, always stored in the sauce. Then do whatever you want with it: tacos, nachos, poutine, more sandwiches. My favourite by a mile is a pulled pork grilled cheese. Far too much cheese, and a heavy spoonful of saucy pork straight from the pot.
✅ What to serve with my beer-braised pulled pork
The sandwich holds its own, but the cabbage is what makes the plate. My creamy coleslaw with pancetta is the one that goes right inside the bun, and my creamy coleslaw with apples and celery cuts through the richness if the sauce feels heavy. Make my homemade cheesy brioche buns if you have an afternoon, they are worth it. And if you want to push the smoke further, my homemade classic smoky BBQ sauce replaces the Diana on the top bun without losing a thing.
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Ingredients for the beer-braised pulled pork
- A good pour of olive oil, about 2 to 3 tablespoons (30 to 45 ml), plus more as needed
- 1 bone-in pork picnic shoulder roast (about 4 lb/1.8 kg), skin removed
- Salt and ground pepper
- 3 Italian tomatoes, diced
- 1 Spanish onion, coarsely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
- 1 cup (250 ml) dark beer, stout or porter, or any other dark beer you like
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) ketchup
- 3 teaspoons (15 ml) Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) soya sauce
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) white balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) molasses
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) sriracha
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) dry mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) Italian spices
- 6 cheese bread buns
- 6 Swiss cheese slices
- 1 pack of fresh coleslaw mix, without dressing
- Smoked Diana sauce, or any smoky barbecue sauce
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Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Cut the pork shoulder into big chunks, working the meat off the bone. Keep the bone, it goes into the pot too. Season generously with salt and pepper.
- In an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven over medium-high heat, warm a good pour of olive oil. Sear the pork chunks for 10 to 12 minutes total, turning them, until browned all over. Add more oil as needed. Remove the meat and the bone, then set aside.
- In the same pot at medium heat, cook the tomatoes, garlic and onion for 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and stir regularly.
- Deglaze with 1/2 cup (125 ml) of beer and reduce heat. Simmer for 5 minutes and stir regularly. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the pork, the buns, the cheese, the coleslaw and the Diana sauce) and stir well. Then purée everything with an immersion blender or a food processor until smooth.
- Return the pork chunks and the bone to the pot, coat them well with sauce and cover. Bake for 3 hours to 3 hours 30, or until the meat pulls apart with a fork without any fight.
- Remove the meat and let it cool down for about 15 minutes before pulling it apart with a fork. Take out the bone and throw away the chunks of fat as you go.
- Meanwhile, pour the sauce from the bottom of the pot and the rest of the beer into a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until reduced by half (about 15 to 20 minutes), or until thick enough to stick to the back of a wooden spoon. Add the meat to the sauce and mix it all together!
- Prepare the buns by slicing them in half. Add a small quantity of smoked Diana sauce under the top bun. Put a slice of Swiss cheese on the bottom bun and add a good quantity of pulled pork on it. Garnish generously with fresh and crunchy coleslaw then eat right away!
Three things, and only one of them is the cut. First, brown the meat before it braises. Ten to twelve minutes in olive oil builds a layer of flavour that no amount of slow cooking creates on its own. Second, cook the sauce before the pork goes into it, instead of dumping raw ingredients around the roast and waiting. Third, low heat and patience: 350°F covered for three and a half hours, or eight hours on low in a slow cooker. Rushing pulled pork is the one thing that ruins it.
Yes. Do every step up to the blending in a pot on the stove, then move the pork chunks, the bone and the sauce into the slow cooker. Low for eight hours, covered. Not high. Slow cooker pulled pork needs time, not heat, and the high setting gives you tough strands instead of soft ones. I honestly reach for the oven more often now because three and a half hours gets me the same result, but if you leave the house in the morning, the slow cooker wins.
Not broth, and definitely not cola. The best liquid is a sauce you already built. Here it is tomatoes, garlic and onion cooked down, deglazed with dark beer, then blended smooth with ketchup, maple syrup, molasses, balsamic and Worcestershire. The pork braises in that instead of in water, so the liquid you reduce at the end is already a finished sauce rather than something you have to rescue.
Both come off the same shoulder, and both work here. Pork butt, also called Boston butt, sits higher and carries a little more fat marbled through it. Picnic shoulder is what I use, bone in, because the bone adds flavour and stays in the pot the whole time. Cutting it into big chunks just means working the meat off the bone, not getting rid of it. If your butcher only has boneless, take it and shave a bit off the cooking time. Same cut, completely different direction, in my General Tao pulled pork.
Coleslaw, every time. My creamy coleslaw with pancetta goes straight into the sandwich, and my creamy coleslaw with apples and celery brings a sharper bite when the sauce feels rich. My homemade cheesy brioche buns change the whole sandwich if you have time to bake. And for anyone who likes sauce on sauce, my homemade classic smoky BBQ sauce is what I brush on the top bun.
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