Make Crock-Pot Pork Barbecue Recipe and Video

by R.B. Quinn and Min Merrell
Make Crock-Pot Pork Barbecue Recipe and Video

Anyone can be a cheater with crock-pot pork barbecue. Watch the Cheater Pulled Pork video or just make the slow cooker pulled pork barbecue recipe below.  You’ll love it.

crock-pot pork barbecue

Ultimate Cheater Crock Pot Pork Barbecue

Okay, here we go. We’ll either have you at “Ultimate Cheater Pulled Pork” or our book is headed straight for the library’s used book sale. We know that. You know that. So, let’s drop the chit chat and make some cheater barbecue.

In short, you drop a pork butt into the slow cooker, add dry rub and bottled smoke, close the cover, go away for a while, pull or chop the meat and pile it on a bun, add sauce, get out the pickles, open a beer. BOOM! That’s barbecue, baby. Can you feel it? That’s Ultimate Cheater Pulled Pork.

Makes 12 to 14 servings

One (5 to 6 pound) boneless Boston Butt pork roast or boneless country style ribs

1/4 cup Cheater Basic Dry Rub (or your own favorite, ours is just a blend of salt, pepper, paprika and a little garlic powder)

1/2 cup bottled smoke (you can use less, if this scares you)

  1. Cut up the pork shoulder into medium (2 to 3-inch) chunks, if you like, but you don’t have to (the country style ribs don’t need to be cut up).
  2. Put the pieces in a large (at least 5 quarts) slow cooker. Sprinkle the meat with the rub, turning the pieces to coat evenly. Add the bottled smoke.
  3. Cover and cook on high 5 to 6 hours or on low for 10 to 12 hours, until the meat is pull-apart tender and reaches an internal temperature of 190° F.
  4. Remove the meat from the cooker to a rimmed platter or baking sheet with tongs and a slotted spoon. Allow the meat to cool enough to handle.
  5. Pull the meat into strands. It should shred very easily.
  6. Serve the barbecue piled on buns with barbecue sauce like our favorite Nashville Crossroads Cheater Q Sauce.
  7. To serve the barbecue later, refrigerate the meat when it has cooled. Pour the meat juice into a separate container and refrigerate. Before reheating the juice, skim and discard the congealed fat layer on the top.
  8. To re-warm the barbecue, place it in a saucepan moistened with some of the reserved juice. Gently heat the meat on medium low, stirring occasionally. Or, place it in a covered casserole with some of the reserved juice and heat in a 350° F oven for 20 to 30 minutes.
  9. While the meat warms, combine the barbecue sauce and some of the additional reserved meat juice in a saucepan. Heat through and serve with the barbecue.
 
crock-pot pork barbecue

See the pork butt actually develops a nice crust even in a slow cooker.

Cheater Knife and Fork Ribs

Country style pork ribs aren’t ribs in the traditional sense of a long bone wrapped in meat. They’re more meat than bone (if they have any bone at all) and they’re best with a knife and fork, a little sauce, and some cornbread. Done in a slow cooker, these ribs melt into short-strand pulled-pork barbecue in less time than a Boston Butt shoulder because the ribs come already cut. Country style ribs give off less meat juice and less fat than the shoulder, too.

Big Oven Butt

A big pork butt cooks to pull-apart tenderness as well in an oven as in a slow cooker. It’s up to you so choose your weapon. Heat the oven to 300° F. Place the pork butt in a large roasting pan. Coat the outsides generously with the dry rub. Pour in the bottled smoke. Cover the pan with heavy duty aluminum foil. Roast 5 to 8 hours, until the meat is pull-apart tender and reaches an internal temperature of 190° F.