Pulled pork is a popular and tasty recipe, slow cooked over low heat to create a succulent and juicy dish.

What is pulled pork?

Pulled pork is cooked slowly over a low heat until it is tender enough to be ‘pulled’ apart.

Any meat can be slow cooked, whether it’s beef, chicken, lamb or pork. What’s important when you are slow cooking your meat, is the cut you use and the muscle to fat ratio that it has.  Fat equals flavour when cooking meat, especially when you are slow cooking. A cut of meat with a lot of fat on it will come out very juicy; Leaner cuts such as leg cut with too much muscle and not enough fat may mean your slow cooked meat will come out dry.

What cut of meat makes the best pulled pork?

Our Puddledub hogroasts are very popular, and involve cooking the whole pig. What we find is that the shoulder is the best cut for making pulled pork due the right balance of fat and muscle to create a juicy and tender pulled pork. 

When choosing your cut look for intramuscular fat known as ‘marbling’. 

How to cook your pulled pork?

Crock pot, slow cooker or even your oven at home are all ideal for slow cooking your meat.

In our pulled pork recipe, we use a shoulder cut which has plenty of fat in it and place it uncovered in the oven at 120*C for up to 4 hours. The final result remains juicy due to the higher fat content but most of this has melted away during cooking. Any large pieces can be removed before eating if that’s your preference. 

Pulled Pork Recipe

Serves 4

This recipe was created by Jenny Thomson at Courses For Cooks.

What you need 

700g Puddledub pork shoulder

Rub
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
1 large clove garlic finely grated
Pinch chilli flakes
½ tsp fennel seed
1 tbsp finely grated root ginger
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp demerara sugar

1. To prepare the rub, grind up the fennel seeds and add all dry ingredients together with the soy sauce. 

2. Pre heat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas7. Remove any string from the pork and unroll if necessary.

3. Mix the rub ingredients together and smear over the pork, rubbing it into all the cut sides and rind.

4. Place the pork on a baking sheet and place in the oven for 20min.

5. After 20min, turn the oven down to 120C/240/Gas ¾ for 4 hours, or until the meat can be pulled apart with two forks.

6. To serve, increase the oven heat again to 200C/400F/Gas6 remove the rind from the pork and return to the oven for 10min to crisp the crackling.

7. Place the meat onto a serving dish and shred with two forks.

8. Pour over any pan juices, cut the crackling into strips and arrange at the side of the meat.

Pulled Pork Serving Suggestions

Pulled Pork Recommended Cut

If you would like to try this recipe, our recommended cut is a 2kg Pork Shoulder as the texture and flavour does improve with size of cut.