In the annals of recipes I made this year I don’t think there’s one more hands-off recipe than this BBQ pulled pork sandwich.

It’s easy to make, delicious, and supports a fairly large array of customizations. Furthermore, it allows one to cook in advance a large amount of pork which can then be used in other dishes.

I feel that a few warnings/caveats are important:

• the BBQ sauce is the king here and the bun is the queen; we were all in agreement that we couldn’ve substituted saw dust for the pork and still would’ve made a deliciuos sandwich; as such, make sure you select a BBQ sauce that you absolutely love;
• having a slow-cooker makes it the easiest variant possible; that being said, a Dutch oven would work too and would likely require a bit of monitoring;
• it’s not easy to eat - as you bite into the sandwich, the pulled pork as the most liquid component, will have a tendency to escape the sandwich; most photos on the internet show a good inch of pulled pork between the buns - that’s the ideal amount for taste and yet I found it totally unmanageable.

Recipe

The typical pulled pork sandwich is made with pork butt aka shoulder.

I used pork loin because it was on sale at Costco for a little under $2/lb. I don’t think it makes a difference - the BBQ sauce annihilates whatever subtle flavor the pork cut would’ve brought by itself (so select a delicious BBQ sauce).

Ingredients

• 1-2 lbs of pork butt, loin, shoulder, etc (advice: put as much as it comfortably fits into the slow cooker - freeze the remains)
• 1 cup of BBQ sauce - we used Sweet Baby Ray’s
• bread: regular onion rolls work, so do scratch rolls, even Hawaiian rolls (if a paired with a not-so-sweet sauce)
• toppings: sauteed mushrooms, coleslaw, pickles are traditional

Preparation

1. Place pork in slow cooker. Cook on low heat for about 5-6 hours; look for center temperature to achieve 195F and for the pork to start coming apart when poked with a fork.
2. Pull pork apart, mix with whatever fat was in the pot. Add BBQ sauce and mix well.
3. Serve on buns with whatever toppings your heart desires.

Calories: hard to say because the type of BBQ sauce and the bun make a large difference. All in all I’d say 600-1,000 calories per serving, with some 30-50g of fat, around 40g of protein, and way too many carbs. All worth it.