Ranchero Shredded Pork

Today is Sunday and it was a cold and blustery day, so I thought an easy spicy comfort meal was in order.  Let’s see, crock pots are easy, so I’ll do that. Spicy and comfort just go together for me, lucky it works for my husband and son too! So, they take a little Zantac every once in awhile…

I like to buy those small pork roasts at Costco. They come in three packs and are sealed in great packaging that is easy to freeze.  When I buy a 3 pack, I use one right away and stash the other two in the freezer for later on.  Each roast is about 2 lbs each, which is a great size for a family dinner, or if, you are a small family, great way to have leftovers.  I’ll give you more ideas on the leftovers below!

I’ve been making this dish for a year or so, and I really can’t remember the original inspiration. I like the recipe so much for the Ranchero sauce as much as I do the shredded pork.  I’ll also give you some ideas on how to use the extra sauce below.

Ingredients:

1 2lb pork shoulder roast (approx… bigger works too!)

1 28 oz. can of Rotel diced tomatoes with peppers (regular diced tomatoes work too!)

1 ½ cup of water

½ or 1 whole medium Anaheim chili, minced

½ or 1 whole medium jalapeno, minced

1 medium onion, diced

1 Tbsp chili powder

1 Tbsp. cumin

1 Tbsp. smoked paprika

…I know I pictured limes in the ingredient photo, but I decided the Rotel tomatoes were pretty tangy, so I didn’t use them.

Remove the pork from the wrapper, and rinse it before putting in your crock pot.  I know many people and recipes swear you ought to brown the meat before you cook it in the crock pot, but I’m into EASY, so I’ve been skipping this part for awhile.  Hey, if you want to brown it, knock yourself out, I bet it will be great, but I know you’ll be washing more pans than I did.

Add the tomatoes and water on top of the pork and add all the rest of the ingredients!  See? I told you this was going to be easy!  I’ve shown my ingredients sitting artfully on top of the pork roast, but of course, you do need to give them a little stir before you put the lid on and start the cooking process.

***If you are not into super spicy, you might want to reduce the amount of chilies that you use.  I chickened out and only add ½ a jalapeno and ½ the Anaheim pepper as I was worried the Rotel tomatoes were too spicy.

I cooked this roast about 4 ½ hours, and limited the amount of times that I peeked inside by removing the lid.  I read somewhere that every time you remove the lid from your crock pot that you extend the cooking time by 15 minutes due to the change in temperature.  Yep, it scared me enough to get anxious every time I really do need to take the lid off.

After 4 hours, I removed the pork roast from the crock pot and placed on a small baking sheet.  Bake the pork roast at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.  This dries the roast out a bit, which is a good thing after simmering in the liquid all day.  You don’t have to do this step, I’ve skipped it before, but I’ve noticed that the pork is a bit more watery and a bit too “shreddy”.

While the pork is in the oven, add the liquid from the crock pot into your blender.   Blend until smooth.

***Remember, it can be kind of dangerous to blend hot mixtures as they tend to expand and fly out the top!  Cover your blender top with a kitchen towel and hold on before blending. 

Add the contents of the blender into a saucepan and reduce on medium heat for about 10 minutes.  Mine usually reduces by about 25%.  Add salt and pepper after the sauce has reduced… you might even find that you don't need much at all! 

Take the pork out of the oven and using 2 forks, shred it into nice chunks that work for your dinner and top with the Ranchero sauce.

Main Dish and Side Dish Inspirations

This meal has SO MANY options of how you could really eat it, that I am going to give you a list of some ideas of what you can do:

• Ranchero pork burritos (pictured!).  Flour tortilla, shredded cheese, a little leftover rice, shredded pork, sauce, roll it all up and top with more Ranchero sauce and more cheese.  Serve with Mexican coleslaw with lime.

• Pork tacos… yep, just use it in place of your normal ground beef.
• Shredded meat topped with sauce and served with rice and refried beans.
• Ranchero Pork Enchiladas
• Ranchero shredded pork sandwich on a hoagie roll… top with some of the crunchy tangy coleslaw.

Round Two cooking… make more and use it for:

• See above…

What else would this technique work on???

You could easily use this technique on:

• Beef, Turkey breast or chicken

One #1 favorite thing to do with the leftover Ranchero sauce… IS… drum roll please… Huevos Ranchero!  Tomorrow’s my birthday and I intend to make myself a little Huevos Ranchero for breakfast.  I will tell you how tomorrow!