Pulled Pork and Caramelized Onions

I have been wanting to put this recipe up here since the summer. My mother in law (Ruthie) made this (twice apparently but only once when I was around) and it was so good that i nabbed the recipe with the intention of listing it on the blog… I wanted to wait until I made it to actually put it up here – and yesterday – I did! So here it is – slow cooked pulled pork and caramelized Onions!

What you will need for the pulled pork

Pork shoulder roast

1.5 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp black pepper (I omitted this – my son Leo doesn’t love spice)

1 tsp Cayenne pepper (I used chipotle this time)

dried thyme 1 tsp

garlic powder – 1 tsp

Directions?

Literally just mix all the dry ingredients together and rub all over the roast. Place roast on rack in slow cooker and place one cup of water in the bottom of the cooker being careful not to wash of the rub from the roast. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Remove from heat and allow to cool enough so you can handle it – here is the messy part – separate the fat and sinew and discard as well as discarding the fat and water at the bottom of the cooker. Place the meat in a bowl and pull apart with two forks until desired consistency is reached – add your favourite BBQ sauce or none at all – it is so yummy!

yummy slow cooked pulled pork

Ok but what to do with pulled pork

Sandwiches for my husband Ryan for sure and for me a pulled pork salad bowl (so good I had it today for lunch I will post that one next week – it is super simple to make with the leftovers or just intentionally with this pulled pork.

For Ryan He loves a crusty bun with pulled pork, caramelized onions, pickles, cheese and hot peppers – so good and messy… Also this meal goes a really long way – I bought two pork shoulder roasts from Costco for $26 which I thought was really good but one of my patients said you could get it at an even better price. One roast will feed us for several meals this week for sure.

Caramelized onions – a great topper for pulled pork

So this is super easy but does take a while – and frankly I smell like onions all day… sorry to my patients today!

I used a whole bag of regular cooking yellow onions (but lots of people use sweet ones)

around 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1-2 tsp of brown sugar

around a teaspoon of salt.

So here I just melted the butter and added oil then the onions (peeled and sliced really thin – I used a food processor for this step), brown sugar and salt. Cook stirring very often on medium to low heat – this part takes ages to brown up slowly and release the natural sugars in the onion – around an hour. Yep and hour. Ya my house and me kinda stink – even after I showered. I like to diffuse the essential oil Purification in the house (by Young Living) to help with the smell. So delicious and actually worth the hour. But I do a ton at once in a big pot and then refrigerate – I am going to try freezing some this time to see how it works…

Half way through the process - caramelized onions

So there you have it – super simple and so tasty…. let me know if you try it!