Aprille Clark, Fit Fare - True pulled pork is slow-cooked for hours in a traditional smokehouse, but I’ve come up with a reduced-fat crock pot version that’s great for a weeknight and pleases us both.  One important thing is to find a really flavorful barbecue sauce.  If you make it yourself, you have more control over the ingredients, but I’m not usually that motivated on weekends.  Find a sauce you like, but err on the side of thicker and spicier.  Since we’re reducing the fat and adding a little water, it will dilute the sauce a bit, and you want to make sure it has a strong enough flavor to compensate.  Barbecue sauces can be high in sugar (another reason to make your own if that’s an ingredient you’re watching), but they’re almost always low in fat, so they can be a smart condiment choice.

To a crock pot, add:

1 large onion, halved (NOT chopped up) and skin removed
1 inexpensive pork roast (about 2 pounds)
1/4 cup vinegar of your choice (regular distilled works fine; cider vinegar adds nice flavor)

Set crockpot on low and cook all day (8-10 hours).  When you get home from work, you will be greeted by wonderful aromas.

Remove the onion halves and set aside.   Remove pork and drain fat from crock pot.  Break the pork into chunks and pick out any visible fat.  Place the pork chunks in a large colander and spray with hot water.  This step reduces the fat considerably and also breaks down the size of the chunks.

Return the pork to the crock pot.  Finely chop the reserved onion and add it to the pork.

Warm barbecue sauce of your choice (this is important because the crock pot is not hot enough to bring cold barbecue sauce up to temperature) and add it to the crock pot.  Stir to coat the pork and onions.

***Optionally, you can skip the step of mixing in the sauce and just add some to your sandwich.  This will reduce the overall amount of sauce you use.

Serve on whole wheat buns with baked sweet potato “fries” on the side.

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