Slow Cooker Carolina-Style Pulled Pork is a favorite at our house because 1) It’s super easy to make, 2) It’s super delicious, and 3) It makes a large quantity. Yay for leftovers! I made this pulled pork with an Eastern North Carolina-style sauce.
Yes, pulled pork is serious business in North Carolina and there are different styles depending on the part of the state.
Easterners like their pulled pork with a thin, vinegary sauce that’s very tangy and peppery. It tastes wonderful on a sandwich with a creamy, sweet coleslaw to balance out the tang.
When I don’t feel like making my own coleslaw, I swing by the drive-thru at Bojangles and pick up a large container of their coleslaw. It’s much better than the prepared coleslaw at the grocery store. If you don’t have Bojangles near you, try the coleslaw at KFC or Popeye’s.
If you want to make homemade coleslaw, I love this Buttermilk Coleslaw Recipe.
Type Of Pork To Use
You will want to use a 6 to 8-pound Boston Butt for this recipe. You can use either boneless or bone-in. If using bone-in, you can easily remove and discard the bone at the end of the cooking time.
Recipe Tips
- You will need a 6-quart slow cooker for this recipe.
- Cut as much fat as you can off of the Boston Butt.
- When I cook pulled pork in the crock pot, I pretty much make 2 sauces and the first one ends up getting discarded. You’ll want a sauce to flavor the pork while it cooks, but Boston Butt releases so much fat into the slow cooker, it’s swimming in fatty liquid by the time it’s done cooking. The best way to get rid of this fat is to dump most of the liquid out and add a new sauce to the cooked pork. Then you have fully flavored pork, that’s not too greasy. Whether you serve this pork with baked beans and corn, or on a sandwich with coleslaw, it’s a super easy and flavorful meal that will fill your families bellies.
Pin this now to find it later
Pin ItTry These Other Pulled Pork Recipes:
- Pulled Pork King Ranch Casserole
- Slow Cooker Mississippi Pulled Pork
- Crock Pot Teriyaki Pulled Pork
- Crock Pot Root Beer Pulled Pork
- Pulled Pork Burritos with Cheesy Sour Cream Sauce
- Instant Pot Pulled Pork
- Slow Cooker Smokey Pulled Pork
Slow Cooker Carolina-Style Pulled Pork
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 small sweet onion, chopped
- 1 (4 to 6-pound) Boston Butt,, with or without bone
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 3/4 cup ketchup
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
BBQ Sauce
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 3/4 cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Place chopped onion on bottom of a slow cooker.
- Trim excess fat from Boston Butt and place in slow cooker on top of onions.
- Combine remaining ingredients in a bowl and pour on top of pork. Cover and cook on low 8-10 hours.
- Combine all ingredients for BBQ Sauce in a medium saucepan. Simmer for 20 minutes.
- Remove pork from slow cooker (after 8-10 hours) and place in a large bowl. Use forks to shred the meat.
- Discard the majority of liquid in the slow cooker. Return meat to slow cooker and add BBQ Sauce. Cover and cook on low 30 minutes. Serve.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links.
Iam very anxious to try this recipe
Thanks for sharing really helpful for me.
Cooked it in an instant pot on low for 8:50. Meat was at most partially cooked. I don’t know if it’s becuase our Boston butt was bone in or if were doing something else wrong.
Try upping the time to 12 minutes. Add 3minute increments until desired tenderness is achieved. Then finish with the BBQ sauce on saute mode, stirring frequently until BBQ is at the consistency you want.
The instant pot has 3 slow cook settings. Low is equivalent to keep warm. Select the medium option for low and high when you want high.
Hi! We’re from up north and decided to make this recipe for the Fourth of July (it’s cooking as I write this). The instructions say to cook on low for 8-10 hours. We’re using an instant pot so we put the setting to slow cooker, put the heat to “less” and turned venting on. We checked it after about 8 hours and 50 minutes and the meat was at the most, partially cooked. I’m wondering if this was because we used bone in Boston butt or if our instant pot’s low setting isn’t hot enough. Do you have an idea of what we might have done wrong?😅
I don’t really have any experience using the Instant Pot as a slow cooker so I’m not really sure what went wrong. The bone shouldn’t have been an issue.
its because you vented it
My IP never cook properly when i use slow cook. I use my regular crockpot/slow cooker. Just finish making this recipe and it is fabulous. I can say this because i was born and raisedbon NC pork barbeque.
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OMG! I had my laugh for the day reading the comment from Gerry in Oregon. Thank you Rachael for your thoughts. If the intent was to place the excess fat on top of the onions, the meat would not have had to have been trimmed, now would it Gerry.
However, quite yummy. My new favorite pulled pork recipe!
Hi Christina, I made this pulled pork and gosh! it was nice. My wife took it to her office for the potluck and won first prize! I did make some modifications, like adding caramelized leftover onions from the crockpot (I had to put the drained remains from the crock in a flat pan until onions got fully caramelized and almost burnt), modified the ratio of ketchup to apple cider vinegar a bit. Also added a little dried Thyme and Basil. I also increased the garlic to two portions.
I usually cook Indian food pretty well and am the main cook in my family.
Thanks a lot for sharing!
I’ve made this recipe once before and it was delicious. I’m making it again, using the same cut – pork shoulder butt with the bone. Does it matter if it’s bone side down in the pot? Should I flip it over halfway through? I can’t remember what I did the last time. It’s in my crock pot now, bone side down.
This recipe is the bomb!!!! I cooked this in my Instant Pot with chicken instead of pork and added a dash of liquid smoke afterwards! LOVE Carolina style bbq! I can’t wait to do this with pork or beef!!!
How long did you cook it in your instant pot?
Thank you for this recipe!! I haven’t had Carolina bbq since I moved away from North Carolina YEARS ago. This was just what I’d been missing!!