Easiest Pulled Pork Ever

Alright friends, honesty hour. I was not fully prepared to be a wife. Yesterday when I spent my entire afternoon in the emergency room, (I'm fine. Just back problems.) I was watching a rerun of 19 Kids and Counting where Jessa Duggar was preparing to marry Ben. They mentioned how Jessa had spent the months leading up to her wedding taking over preparing meals for the family. She learned how to cook so that she would be fully prepared to become a wife. I did not do this. When I married Brent, I could rock some Mac and Cheese and make a killer PB&J. The first few months of our marriage, we did a lot of eating out and precooked or frozen meals. We lived on Hamburger Helper, Taco Bell, and frozen pizza. When I finally decided I needed to start learning to cook, I had NO clue where to start! I wanted easy recipes that required very few ingredients. Less ingredients means less of a chance of messing it all up, right? So that is how I stumbled upon an amazing recipe for 3-ingredient pulled pork! And being able to provide an amazing home-cooked meal for my husband gave me the confidence to continue learning to cook! These days, we eat at home more often than not. I'm able to cook from scratch. I've even made up new recipes! So in an effort to encourage my friends who feel they can't cook, I wanted to share this recipe for 5-ingredient pulled pork! (See? 2 new ingredients! That means I can cook! ;) ) You CAN do this! All you need is a pork loin, root beer, onion, season-all salt, and BBQ sauce.

 First things first, just throw your pork loin into the crock pot. You can throw it in frozen or thawed. Whatever you want. This is part of a gigantic pork loin we bought from BJ's and cut up ourselves. From a piece this size we get enough for about 8 sandwiches! So that's perfect because we love leftovers. :)

 I didn't have an onion on hand when I made this, so I just threw some of this chopped onion I got from Costco a while back. These 2 ingredients are optional and just something I have thrown in over time. The Season All I just sprinkle on top to give a little extra flavor. You could use your favorite pork rub if you want or any seasonings you really like. Or leave it out all together. Again, these 2 are completely optional.

 Here you can see I just sprinkled about that much onion on top, and added my Season All salt.

 Use any root beer, and any BBQ sauce you want. I'm a big fan of Stubb's BBQ or Sweet Baby Ray's. But I'm also a big fan of sales! So here's my Kroger brand root beer and BBQ sauce. I'll give you a hint, Kroger root beer is the most delicious root beer I've ever tasted!

 Take about a 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce and your full can of root beer. Mix that all up really good. You don't HAVE to do this part. When I first started making this pulled pork, I just threw in the root beer without the BBQ sauce until later on. But I have found adding just that little bit of BBQ sauce early on really adds to the flavor.

 After you've mixed your root beer and BBQ sauce, just pour it all over the pork.

Cook your pork low and slow. I shoot for 8-10 hours or so on low. But if you're like me that day and completely forget about dinner until noon, you can cook it on high for 6 hours. The meat won't be quite as tender, but it'll still be great!


 I forgot to take a picture of this part, but 30 minutes before dinner time, pull the meat really good using 2 forks. At this point, it should pretty much just fall apart. If there's way too much juice, drain the meat a little. But you want to keep some of the moisture. Add the rest of your bottle of BBQ sauce, or however much you want. If your family likes things really saucy, add more. If your family doesn't, add less. Let it cook the last 30 minutes to warm up the BBQ sauce and let the flavors mix a little.

When it's time to serve, just pile it high on whatever buns you like. Usually we add a little more BBQ sauce and/or ranch to our sandwich. When we serve this for friends, we get coleslaw to pile on our sandwich. Whatever you like with your BBQ. Serve with fries, baked beans, chips, whatever floats your boat. And this tastes even more amazing as leftovers! 

This is one of our favorite meals to make. It's quick and easy, and my husband LOVES it! Let me know if you make this!

What was the first meal you learned to make?

5-Ingredient Pulled Pork

Ingredients

• Pork Loin (or pork butt or pork chops. literally whatever pork you can find on sale)
• 1 can of Root Beer (or Coke, Dr.Pepper, Pepsi.. any dark-colored coke.)
• 1 bottle-ish of your favorite BBQ Sauce (I typically use what's on sale.)
• 1 onion sliced (optional)
• Season-All Seasoned Salt (optional)

Steps

1. Place pork in slow cooker.
2. (Optional) place onion on top and sprinkle with Season All salt.
3. Mix 1/2 cup BBQ sauce and 1 can root beer. 
4. Pour root beer mixture over pork.
5. Cook on low 8-10 hours or on high 6 hours.
6. 30 minutes before serving, pull pork, drain most of the juice, pour remaining BBQ sauce in with the pulled pork. Mix well. Let cook for remaining 30 minutes.
7. Serve on buns. Enjoy the compliments you receive for an amazing home-cooked meal.