The crock pot is one of my favorite kitchen appliances, especially in those warm Summer months when you don't want to heat up the house with the stove or oven. This recipe is super simple, tasty, and doesn't have a lot of added fat or calories.
INGREDIENTS
- 4-6 lbs of pork (I used country style pork ribs, but you can use a pork roast too)
- sea salt and cracked pepper to season the meat before searing
- 2 tbsp of avocado oil
- 1/2 cup garlic wine vinegar
- 1 cup spicy brown mustard
- 1 cup stone ground mustard
- 2 cups of water divided (1/2 cup to deglaze, and 1 1/2 cups to add to the crock pot)
- 1 tbsp creamed horseradish
- 2 tbsp of chopped garlic
DIRECTIONS
- Trim the excess fat from the pork. Some fat is good as it will keep the meat tender, but if there is a lot of extra fat on the outside, trim that off.
- Season the meat with a generous amount of sea salt and cracked black pepper.
- Add the avocado oil to a large pot (enamel coated cast iron pots are great for this). I recommend avocado oil here due to the healthy fats it contains as well as its high smoke point. Olive oil isn't as good for searing since the high heat tends to make it smoke, burn, and break down.
- Turn the heat up to high and get the oil hot.
- Add the meat and sear on all sides until browned. This will help keep the juices in the meat when cooking and help it be more tender and juicy. It also creates caramelization on the surface of the meat and will give your pork a deeper, richer flavor.
- Transfer the meat directly into your crock pot from the searing pot and turn off the stove.
- After you have transferred the meat, add the 1/2 cup of water to the searing pot to deglaze the pan. If you don't know what deglazing is, it's when you add liquid to the pot after searing while it is still hot to remove all of the browned bits left on the bottom of the pan where a lot of flavor lives. Use a wooden spoon to stir and remove the bits and then transfer all of that brown goodness into the crock pot.
- For this next step, you can just dump all of the other ingredients in the crock and mix up a bit, or you can mix all of the remaining ingredients in a bowl and then add them to the crock pot. The end result is the same, so I typically just choose to dump and stir.
- Then, just pop on the lid to the crock pot and cook for 8 hours on low. LOW and SLOW. If you are in a pinch and under time constraints, you could probably cook for about 4 hours on low and then 2 hours on high, but I recommend the 8 hours on low if possible. When you try to speed it up, you run the risk of the meat being a bit more dry.
- Once the meat is done, turn off the pot and then transfer the meat to a large bowl with a slotted spoon to strain off as much of the juice as possible. That's where all the fat now lives. If your aren't watching your calories, feel free to keep some of the juice. But if you are trying to keep it healthy, you want to limit the excess juice. Then, just let the meat rest for a few minutes and serve! This meat will be falling apart, so if you used ribs, or a slab of meat with the bone in, the meat should fall right off of the bone.
If you aren't watching calories, you can also substitute in your favorite beer for the water in this recipe. It turns out extra delicious and the beer makes the meat even more tender and moist. I like to use beers like MGD or Miller High Life, but any lager or IPA style beer would work.
You can also substitute in red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar if you don't have garlic wine vinegar. They will all work and taste amazing.
This pairs really well with potatoes and a vegetable, and also makes amazing sandwiches, if you have leftovers ;)
If you are on the 21 Day Fix meal plan, one red container of meat is equal to one red container and 1 teaspoon.
Enjoy!