Holiday pulled pork one-pot meal

It’s not too late to pull together a complete holiday dinner with minimal effort in 24 hours. You do need to start it cooking 24 hours before eating, but your actual prep time is only about 30 minutes. Amazing, huh? And it’s delicious when you’re done. Everyone will be impressed.

The meat cut you’re looking for in the store is pork butt roast, also known technically as “pork shoulder.” It’s commonly available for 99 cents a pound, but at most $1.50 a pound. This is the most tough cut of pork meat, but you will never know it by the time the meat is done. You will cook it for so long that all the fibers of the meat will simply melt away, leaving you with some of the tenderest meat you’ll ever have.

Cooking times will be the same no matter if you’re making a 4-pound roast or 24 pounds of roast. Allow about ¾ pound of meat per adult.

I will use the term “crockpot” but it’s interchangeable with a roaster (which you'll need if cooking more than 4-5 pounds of meat), which, instead of “low” would be set at 250 degrees.

24 hours ahead of dining time, begin making the pork roast.

1. Wash the meat. DO NOT REMOVE any portion of the fat or bone or anything from the roast or it will be ruined.

2. Put the washed roast, fatty side UP, into the crockpot.

3. Fill the crockpot with water until it comes about 2/3 the way up on the pork roast.

4. Dump in 1 packet of onion soup mix and 1 packet of herb and garlic soup/dip mix (2 packets per approximately 4-5 pounds of roast). No need to stir it.

5. Set the crockpot to LOW, then DO NOT TOUCH at all. Don’t break up the meat or flip it or it this will make further preparations more difficult.

6. At hour 20 of cooking, the roast will be completely tenderized and ready to eat. At this point, I remove the fatty layer from the top of the meat. It scrapes off very easily. I also like to pick out the bone, which will slip away from the meat like butter. I try to break up the meat minimally; it can be “pulled” later.

7. Push the pork meat to one side of the crock. Add about half a bag of baby carrots, dumping those in first. Secondly, if you like them, add sliced onions. If not, omit them. Now add 6-10 small to medium sized, roughly-diced potatoes of your choice. Our favorite kind is Yukon Gold. They’re starchy and will absorb the pork broth for a heavenly flavor. (Vegetable amounts are approximate for a regular sized crockpot, if you’re using a large roaster, just increase the amount of vegetables you add.)

8. You can add more liquid, if you like, to make sure the potatoes are more submerged in the broth. However, if they’re not all submerged in broth they will still cook, because you’re going to leave the crockpot on LOW for the next 3-4 hours until everything is tenderized.

9. It’s important to leave the crockpot alone at this point. Don’t even remove the lid to look at how things are coming along.

10. Your holiday meal is ready by hour 23! Feel free to “pull” the pork apart and serve on a separate platter with buns.