Slow Cooker pulled pork - Easy tender and delicious with a Mexican sauce.
I love serving this slow cooker pulled pork with tortilla, rice, or over mashed potatoes.
Definitely, this Slow cooker pulled pork is one of our favourite meals to make when fall or winter is around. The Mexican chilli peppers, red wine, and cumins are a cozy warm taste that's great for those grey and cold days.
Another reason why we love this recipe is that we also add apples in the recipe so it is healthy because it has fibre! Apple also gives sweetness to the sauce and tenderizes the pork. We love this recipe and we make this at least twice a month!
Is so easy you'll be so impressed! It's very hands-off, and it is great for a busy family. It does take some time, but 90% of the time is allowing the Instant Pot to do its magic.
This post is all about slow cooker Mexican pulled pork.
Ingredients for this Mexican Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Recipe
Pork Shoulder
The cut we are looking for in this recipe is the pork shoulder. I like the shoulder because it has enough meat and fat mixed in together. It's not the tough part of the pork and using the slow cook method, the meal always comes out juicy, tender, and oh so good!
Guajillo Peppers
The Guajillo dried peppers are not spicy when the seeds are taken out. It gives a nice thick texture to the sauce and adds flavour as well. Guajillo gives the sauce a more citrus and smoke taste.
Ancho Peppers
The sauce Colour is given by the Ancho peppers. Ancho peppers are also not spicy and don't really have a specific taste. The deep red of the sauce is mostly contributed by using ancho peppers.
Cumin
Always a great partner with pork. It's a great spice for pull pork and I like to be a little heavy with the cumin taste. Cumins come in seed or powder form. I like to use the powder form because it marinates much better than the whole seed.
Red Wine
A great way to tenderize the pork is with red wine. Since we are adding a whole pork roast, red wine helps penetrate into the meat deeper to tenderize it. Red wine also gives it more fall and winter flavour.
Vinegar
The vinegar gives the sauce some tartness and helps round out the flavour more. The recipe asks for apple vinegar, but if you like a deeper flavour palette, you can substitute it with balsamic vinegar.
Apples
I know pulled pork is supposed to be all meat, but adding apples is a great way to include fibre into your diet. Apple also gives a nice flavour to the pulled pork. The sweetness helps offset the wine's acidity and tartness.
Tools: Slow Cooker
I use an Instant Pot 7-in-one duo Instant Pot. I love this thing because it can do 7 things on one device.
One of the methods of cooking I use regularly is the slow cooking option. I always make my slow cooker Mexican pulled pork on this device.
If you don't have an Instant Pot, any slow cooking device works.
How to serve pulled pork
There are many ways of eating pulled pork! Some examples are:
- Bread - and I mean any bread. Get a burger bread and you can make a pull pork burger. A torta can also work. small burger buns and you got some sliders.
- Burrito - wrap it with a flour tortilla like a large burrito
- Taco - put it on top of a corn tortilla and you got yourself a pulled pork taco.
- Mash potato - serve it with mash potato and with veggies. Don't forget to drizzle it with its beautiful gravy sauce as well.
- Poutine - deep fry some fries, and add pull pork, black beans, cheese and sour cream. It can be a complete meal with this one!
- Appetizer - bake thin slices of baguette bread, and serve this pulled pork with some pickled onions.
Mexican Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Equipment
- Instant Pot
Ingredients
Pork Marinate
- 1 kg pork shoulder whole
- 3 tsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 tbsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 3 tbsp canola oil
Mexican Peppers
- 2 guajillo peppers
- 3 ancho peppers
Liquid
- 1 cup red wine
- 3 apples peeled and shredded
- 1 white onion shredded
- 1 cup orange juice
- 2 tbsp vinegar
- 3 bay leaf
- salt to taste
Instructions
- rinse and pat dry the pork shoulder with a paper towel.
- withe the prok marinate mix the spicees and salt together. rub the spice all over the meat. let it sit for 15-30 minutes.
- Soak the mexican peppers in hot boiling water. Put a place or something heavy on top to make sure the whole pepper is soaked for 10 minutes.
- break the top of the peppers off and scrape the inside clean. Throw all the peppers inside a blender with ½ cup of water. Blend until smooth.
- Meanwhile, heat a pan with oil on medium high heat. place the pork shoulder on to the pan and brown all sides of the pork.
- take your Instant Pot or any of your slow cooker, and set it to 'slow cook.' Set the timer for 5 hours on high temperature for the slow cooker if you have that setting. Place the pork shoulder inside the slow cooker and add all the liquids and mexican puree on top of the pork shoulder.
- Close the lid and open the valve.
- after 5 hours, open the lid and using two forks to break the meat up. This will allow the side of the meat to soak up all the juices. Add more salt to your taste.