Food on Fridays: Sweet Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwiches

I'll call this my new recipe "I'm stunned" moment. I picked out a recipe last week when I was hurriedly making the grocery list. I randomly found the recipe here: Hillbilly Housewife.

I thought, "Pulled pork? That sounds good and I bet my oldest will want it in his lunch." Then, I made sure I had the ingredients and that was that.

Enter Wednesday morning... I'm putting the ingredients in the crockpot, thinking "Wow, this could be really spicy."

Then, at dinner time, I grabbed some sunbutter and crackers as a standby because I was sure that the kids would not like the pork sandwiches. They had flavor alright. They were bursting with it.

I was stunned.

My oldest had 2 sandwiches and said, "Lunch is going to be awesome tomorrow!"
Both of the other boys finished their sandwiches as well. They did request a bit more to drink than usual but they all said they liked it...a lot.

My oldest had 2 sandwiches for dinner, then had it in his lunch and requested it for dinner tonight.

I am still stunned.

This is a great recipe, especially if you like a little spice.


Sweet Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwiches

1 (5 lb.) pork should roast or butt roast

dry rub:
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. paprika
1 Tbsp. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
3 small yellow onions cut into large wedges

sauce:
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 Tbsp. honey
1/2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, crushed or grated
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

Put the onions in the crockpot first. Blend dry rub ingredients with fork and gently press and rub over the pork roast. The put the pork roast in the crockpot on top of the onions.


In a glass bowl, whisk together the sauce ingredients until smooth.

Pour 1/2 the sauce mixture over the pork roast in the crockpot, coating the meat well. (Store the remaining 1/2 of the sauce mixture in the refrigerator for later.)
Cover the crockpot and set on LOW temperature. Cook, undisturbed, for 8 to 9 hours.

Remove the meat from the crockpot to a platter and shred with a fork. Pick the onion out from the crockpot and discard. Return the shredded meat to the crockpot, add the sauce mixture you refrigerated earlier to the crockpot and stir to combine well. Put cover back on crockpot and let heat through, about 20 to 30 minutes.

Keep warm and serve on hearty buns. You can make another small batch of the sauce to serve alongside the sandwiches if you wish. Just heat the sauce in a pan for about 15 minutes on low, then pour into a serving bowl with a ladle.

Note: because of the (quite tasty) intense spice to the sauce, I just drained the sauce and served the meat on the buns. The meat was still well coated and soaked in the sauce. Oh! And 3 of us thought the sandwiches were really good with dill pickles.


(Ok, this isn't a great picture. At that point in the evening, I was in get-the-food-on-the-table-because-the-kids-are-cranky-hungry-mode.)

Be sure to check out more tasty recipes at Ann Kroeker's "Food on Fridays".