Pulled-Pork Tacos For #NationalPorkMonth

Scotty October 11, 2021 Clear 99 Blogs, Liz and Scotty in the Morning, Scotty's Blog Leave a comment 747 Views

They turned out good, and thanks to the Clear listeners that suggested trying them!

(The Clear Crew is taking turns cooking something with pork, provided by the Missouri Pork Association, and sharing it with the rest of the crew for National Pork Month. This is Scotty’s submission!)

My initial plan was just to do some basic pulled pork, which I have done somewhat successfully in the past. But we all need to push ourselves occasionally to try something new! We got lots of great suggestions from Clear 99 listeners, but I decided to go with pulled pork tacos.

I also considered smoking the meat on my grill, but that was going to be 9 hours babysitting my charcoal grill and it had already been a long week. So I used my trusty crock-pot instead.

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I actually took something from several different recipes, and here’s what I came up with! (Not in normal recipe form, sorry!)

I started with a 6 lb. pork shoulder from Mo Pork.
I patted it dry with paper towels and rubbed it generously with Show-Me BBQ Rub. (Always use local stuff when you can!) After it was too late, I wondered if I could’ve used more “Mexican Food” spices. I still wonder if just using regular taco seasoning for a rub would work, I have no idea. Either way, I’m a big believer in rubbing up any big cut of meat that you’re going to be slow-cooking, a day or two ahead of time.
I sprayed the pot with cooking spray, then sliced a big onion and placed three slices in a row in the bottom of the pot.
The sauce: I took an 11 0z can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. I picked out the peppers and rough chopped them, then added a couple of spoonful’s of the sauce. Then about a cup of normal salsa, and a couple of shakes of paprika, cumin and some salt. Put it all in a bowl and whisked it up.
Next I put the pork shoulder in the pot on top of the onions fat side up, then put three more onion slices on top of the meat .
- A couple of things here. Some recipes suggest browning the meat on all sides first. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, this time I didn’t. Like I said, long week.
- Several recipes also suggested cutting the shoulder in pieces for more even cooking. Again, sometimes & sometimes…this time I didn’t, it was great.
I poured the sauce over the pork, evened it out with a spoon, put the lid on, set it on low, and went and watched football games for 8 hours.
After that it was tender as it could be, and I just used a couple of forks to pull it apart in the crock pot. Then I let it just sit in the juices on the “warm” setting for another hour or so. It was good to go!