I have been spending a lot of my free time watching the Food Network. Specifically, I have been watching a lot of episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I don’t know what it is that draws me to this program, but I just can’t get enough of it. It is like I have an un-natural attraction to burgers 🙂

So, in watching an abundant amount of this program, I have come to realize that anyone with an oven and a few hours to spare can make delicious pulled pork. I always thought that I had to have a smoker in order to make a proper pulled pork, but a lot of the restaurants on this program dry rub their pork shoulder and roast it in the oven for hours. It looks like it comes out tender, juicy and fully shred-able. Based on my viewing, I decided to give this a try.

Of course, when I mentioned to Jamie that I wanted to try this out this weekend, there were no pleas for me to change my mind. Pulled pork on a cold winter’s day, it is just perfect.

A lot of pulled pork recipes use brown sugar as part of their dry rub, but since we have been eating mostly Paleo for the past month, I looked on-line for a Paleo pulled pork recipe. I found quite a few, but settled on this one, as it didn’t require us to put it in the fridge over-night before roasting it in the oven.

I took a few liberties with the dry spice rub. Basically, anything I had in the pantry was free game. I used chili powder, red chili flakes, mustard powder, paprika, garlic powder, and curry powder. I mixed all the spices together and rubbed them all over the boneless pork shoulder that I had purchased at the local grocery store. Once the spices were a thick coating over the roast, I put it in my roasting pan with some beef stock, onions and butter, and threw it in the oven. That was it. I put the timer on for 5 hours and walked away.

I behaved myself and didn’t peek at the pork shoulder the entire time it was roasting. Oh, I wanted to, but I showed real restraint and avoided the kitchen.

When the timer went off, I couldn’t wait to see what had been transformed in my oven. I was not disappointed. When I took the lid off the roaster, the beef stock had all evaporated out of the pan and I was left with delicious, buttery caramelized onions and a pork shoulder with the perfect amount of bark and that fell apart as soon as I started to shred it with two forks.

I could not believe how easy this was! And yes, I will be making this again, no real surprise there. It is the perfect Sunday dinner, or something you might want to put together for next week’s Super Bowl™!

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Adapted from:
Primal Bites – Paleo Pulled Pork 3 ways

Ingredients:

• 5 lb boneless pork shoulder
• 2 tsp medium curry powder
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp mustard powder
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tbsp salt
• 2 onions – chopped
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 cups beef broth

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a small mixing bowl, mix together all the spices.  Using your hands, generously coat the pork shoulder on all sides with the dry spice mix.
3. Place roast in a large oven safe dish.  Pour in beef broth and top with onions and butter.
4. Cover and cook until the meat shreds easily with a fork, about 5 hours.
5. Shred and enjoy!