Pulled Pork Crockpot Recipes – Is There No Such Thing As An Official Recipe?

If you’ve been searching the internet for pulled pork crockpot recipes to try, you may keep seeing a theme recurring over and over. It seems that there are several regions, states, and even cities that lay claim to a particular “style” of a pulled pork sandwich. The Memphis style appears very often, as does a South Carolina sandwich, and just about every state south of the Mason Dixon line.

Officially speaking, there seems to be no consensus at all. You can compare pulled pork crockpot recipes from now until Hades freezes over and you won’t find a clear cut answer anywhere. There are as many variations to this recipe as there are barbecue sauces and dry rubs. Let’s look at a few common ingredients and cooking methods that keep crossing state lines.

Vinegar – Whether you use white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or red wine vinegar, the idea is the same. In order to make a barbecue sauce you need the sweet and sour combination. You’ll find many recipes that claim to be official Memphis style pulled pork because they always use vinegar in their sauce. However, just about any pulled pork sandwich that has homemade barbecue sauce will have vinegar as an ingredient.

Brown Sugar – Many dry rubs contain brown sugar to give the sweet flavor to the whole sweet-sour balance that a pulled pork sandwich should have. A simple concoction of brown sugar, vinegar, and a pinch of any hot sauce or seasoning is often found in barbecue places in Florida and Alabama. Whether this simple recipe originated there we’ll never know. Although, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a pulled pork sandwich seasoned like this in Memphis.

Dry Rub – Here again the boundaries blur. South Carolina recipes often stake claim to this method of seasoning the pork. The rub is made up of a variety of spices, usually including paprika, cayenne, and lots of black pepper. Some folks say this is the only only flavoring you add to the pork. That means no barbecue sauce is mixed in with the pulled pork, only served on the side as a condiment. As a matter of fact, some folks in Memphis shudder when someone refers to this beloved sandwich as a pulled pork barbecue.

Condiments – Barbecue sauce as a condiment is widely regarded as a standard in every region. Even when the pulled pork never gets a dose of barbecue sauce mixed in with it, there is usually a bottle on the table. You’ll also usually find some pepper vinegar, some mustard, and even a little Tabasco in most regions. What you’ll hopefully never find is ketchup on the table. That would not go over well in any region. However, most everyone believes that adding cole slaw on top of your sandwich is most decidedly a Memphis touch.

Cooking Method – Of course, using your slowcooker to make a batch of pulled pork may be quite a departure from the method your parents and their parents before them used. The most noted methods to prepare the pork include grilling, smoking, oven roasting, and braising. Different methods are claimed as original by different regions and there is no one, simple answer to this. If you go to Memphis you’ll see a lot of smoky pits with big hunks of pork sizzling away on the grill, but you’ll also see that same method in a lot of other places, so it’s hard to pin down.

If you’re reading this and thinking that debating over a bunch of pulled pork crockpot recipes is all a bunch of nonsense, you’re probably right. There you are sitting in South Carolina or Memphis or Georgia thinking “I know darn well that my Granddad created that dry rub” or some such thought, and you’re probably right. The fact is if your family has a recipe you’ve used for years, that’s your recipe and your region. Don’t let the debate dissuade you from making your recipe truly YOURS!

Pick several favorite pulled pork crock pot recipes and get started learning how to save time and money by using crockpot cooking methods to cook up a storm for your family.