Pulled Meat from a Slow Cooker, Easy and Tasty
Slow-cooked meats are easy and tasty, and can be a convenient way to make a warm, full-homemade cooked meal for the family with little work and inexpensively as well. Learn how to make pulled meats at home.
I had always heard the term ‘pulled pork’, and one of my old favorite sandwiches from a local BBQ joint was a pulled pork slider (before I started to eat an all-natural diet), but I’d never known where the term came from or why it had that name. Then, I started to cook, and I mean, really cook, creating my own recipes, following recipes of others, watching cooking shows and more, and using all-natural, unprocessed ingredients. It’s become a bit of a passion and hobby for me, something I can do for my family and for myself, even with all my health struggles, that also can help improve my health, my family’s health, and our quality of life.
So when I learned that pulled pork or pulled chicken or any other pulled meat was nothing more than meat that was ‘pulled apart’, it seemed silly I hadn’t realized where the name had come from in the first place.
To make your own pulled meats, all you need is your favorite type of meat and a slow cooker, and whatever spices or seasonings you want.
Pulled Poultry in a Slow Cooker
When I cook with chicken or turkey or other poultry, I use chicken broth for the base liquid to cook the meat. Rarely will I add salt, since most chicken broths on the market contain high amounts of sodium. If you get a low-sodium broth or make your own (which is what I prefer) and can control the sodium, then add some all-natural sea salt (French sea salt works great in stocks), pepper, and other spices as you like them. Remember, meats will sit in the broth for many hours-the better part of a full day or all night-it will intensify this flavor, so don’t overdo it.
Oil isn’t necessary for this style of cooking, because the meat will stay submersed in liquid the entire time it cooks and won’t get dried out, but if you’d like to increase your good oil fats, some extra virgin olive oil or safflower oil, about 1-3 tablespoons, can add a different type of moisture to the meat and help with infusing flavor. Balsamic vinegar, a few splashes of it, can help with infusing flavor with the fowl while it soaks in broth.
For chicken and turkey, any cut of the bird will do, but dark meat will be slightly chunkier and softer while white meat is more stringy and firm. For hens, game birds, or other fowl, use any part of the bird you wish.
Pulled Pork in a Slow Cooker
The pork shoulder or tenderloin are good for making pulled pork. If you use the tenderloin, but sure to start with the fat side up. Chicken broth can be used for this as well, or you can use any liquid that would be good for flavoring the pork. I have used just plain water and spices in the past, but I still seem to really like the taste of the pork with the chicken broth when cooked this way. A little apple cider vinegar, a few splashes of it, will help with infusing some flavor, and I frequently will put about a cup of orange juice in with the broth, which gives a nice citrus sweetness to the pork, but without making it taste ‘orangey’.
Pulled Beef in a Slow Cooker
Any large, firm piece of beef with work, such as brisket, shoulder, tenderloin, etc. Thinner cuts of beef, steak cuts and the like, are not so good for pulled beef. Brisket is likely the best cut for pulled brisket, and it’s the one I use the most often.
With beef, adding just a touch of olive oil, maybe two-three tablespoons, to the liquid is a good choice. While I can’t tell you why for certain, I’ve found that, for beef, the olive oil makes the meat easier to pull and makes it taste better, too. Using a beef broth or beef bouillon works great for pulled beef, and a few splashes of red wine or white vinegar goes great with pulled beef broth for infusing flavor.
A Word About Vinegar: With any meat, you don’t want to overuse the vinegar. The point of the vinegar is to help with tenderizing and infusing flavor of the broth and spices, not to give it a vinegar flavor–depending on how large a portion of meat you’re doing, you want to use only 1-3 tablespoons maximum of your vinegar of choice, to 4-8 cups of broth to fully cover the meat; in other words, a little bit of vinegar goes a long way.
How to Prepare Pulled Meat
Once you’ve decided on which cut of meat, simply pull out your slow cooker and ingredients. Pat the spices you choose on the meat, poultry or pork, and then place the pieces of meat into the slow cooker, with the fat side, if any, facing up toward you. Then you’ll add the liquid.
If you have to be away from the slow cooker during the day, it’s best to slightly over-cover your meat with liquid, to ensure the liquid doesn’t cook down and leave your meat dry. If you’ll be around the slow cooker all day, then put enough of the cooking liquid in to cover just the tops of the meat, leaving the fat or top surface of the meat slightly exposed.
Pulled Meat Cooking Times
Cook the meat for approximately 6-10 hours, depending on how big the pieces of meat are and how much time you have. By the sixth hour, you can check the readiness of the meat with a fork. Meat that is ready to be pulled will almost literally flake right off very easily with a fork. If there’s any resistance to the fork or the meat doesn’t pull off from the larger piece easily, it needs more time. Remember, the interior will be firmer than the exterior, so make sure it’s super tender–almost literally falling apart–ready to pull before taking it out of the slow cooker.
The good thing about pulled meat cooked in liquid this way is that, as long as you keep it in the liquid, it’s nearly impossible to burn this dish or ruin the meat. If you start in the morning with enough liquid, even if you forget it all day long, or if you set it to cook all night long (which is what I usually do), and you oversleep, you’ll still have juicy, tender meat, ready to be pulled.
How to Pull the Pork, Chicken, Beef
Next is the fun part. Once the meat is done, drain the liquid (but reserve a small amount for use later and if you want, store the rest-pulled meat liquid makes a great gravy base or to boil or blanch veggies for some added flavor, and it’s fantastic to use for boiling rice or noodles–you really want to keep this stock and use it), and remove the meat to a wooden cutting board. You might need to use a slotted spoon or spatula to pick up the meat, because cooking this way in the slow cooker will cause the meat to be so tender and juicy it will quite literally fall off the bone, if there are any bones.
Let the meat rest for about 15-20 minutes, loosely covered in foil. This will keep all the juices from just flowing out of the meat when you cut into it. It will also let the meat cool enough you can touch it with your hands, which you might need to do a little while pulling it.
Next, simply use two regular table forks to jab the meat, side by side, and then pull the forks apart. Keep doing this until all the larger chunks of meat have turned into shredded meat. Keep pulling the meat apart in this way until you have strings of pulled meat shreds.
Now you have choices-you can either eat the meat as is, use the meat in a recipe, or you can do what I often (and usually) do, and that’s to put it back into the slow cooker and pour some homemade barbecue sauce over it, spicy orange sauce, brown gravy sauce–or really, any other sauce you want–with just a touch of the reserved liquid to moisten and thin the sauce. Add enough to coat the meat, stir mixture until the sauce covers all the meat, and let it cook in the slow cooker with the sauce for another 20 minutes. If you chop up some purple onions, you can toss those in too, but give it about half an hour so the onions soften. I usually use the slow cooker on high during this time, but on low during the previous cooking.
You can find many different recipes for slow cooker pulled meat dishes, BBQ pulled pork, orange-coated pulled chicken, and lots more, just by searching online, and now you know how to make the pulled meat to go with those recipes.