An Easy Recipe

Sure, there are more hotly debated subjects than this, but not by much. If you've been looking for pulled pork crockpot recipes, you may be a bit confused as to what exactly is a Carolina style sandwich versus a Memphis style sandwich. And what about Texas weighing in on a "Memphis Style" sandwich. Doesn't Texas have one of their own? Then we hear from Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama each claiming their own original version, but they all seem vaguely familiar.

What most everyone can agree on is that no one agrees which style of sandwich truly belongs to which region. Comparing hundreds of pulled pork crockpot recipes doesn't help much either. For every barbecue sauce on the market there is at least one recipe. For every variation of dry rubs you can find, there are that many more methods and ingredients for cooking a pulled pork sandwich. Here are just a few common methods for cooking and serving this sandwich that seems to be everyone's hometown original!

Vinegar - Most homemade versions of barbecue sauce for a pulled pork sandwich will include vinegar. Memphis may claim this belongs to them, but South Carolina cooks say the same thing. The tangy element of vinegar seems to be a sticking point for almost all recipes in which you make a classic barbecue sauce.

Brown Sugar - I have eaten at barbecue joints in Florida where they use only brown sugar, vinegar, and cayenne pepper to season their pork, making these sandwiches definitely not "barbecue saucy." Brown sugar is a common ingredient in many barbecue sauces, but this style of eliminating the sauce all together is different. There are cooks who swear that there should be NO barbecue sauce mixed in with the pork.

Dry Rub - Here again the boundaries blur. South Carolina recipes often stake claim to this method of seasoning the pork. The rub is made up of a variety of spices, usually including paprika, cayenne, and lots of black pepper. Some folks say this is the only only flavoring you add to the pork. That means no barbecue sauce is mixed in with the pulled pork, only served on the side as a condiment. As a matter of fact, some folks in Memphis shudder when someone refers to this beloved sandwich as a pulled pork barbecue.

Condiments - There are several standard condiments found on most every table serving pulled pork sandwiches. A bottle of barbecue sauce is a must. Then, some people like a little red hot sauce, mustard, and salt and pepper. I have yet to see a bottle of ketchup! That just seems wrong... and it probably is. Memphis holds the honor in most people's opinion of being the cole slaw condiment originator. If you get a "slap of slaw" on top, you're probably enjoying a real Memphis pulled pork sandwich.

Cooking Method - Of course, using your slowcooker to make a batch of pulled pork may be quite a departure from the method your parents and their parents before them used. The most noted methods to prepare the pork include grilling, smoking, oven roasting, and braising. Different methods are claimed as original by different regions and there is no one, simple answer to this. If you go to Memphis you'll see a lot of smoky pits with big hunks of pork sizzling away on the grill, but you'll also see that same method in a lot of other places, so it's hard to pin down.

If you're reading this and thinking that debating over a bunch of pulled pork crockpot recipes is all a bunch of nonsense, you're probably right. There you are sitting in South Carolina or Memphis or Georgia thinking "I know darn well that my Granddad created that dry rub" or some such thought, and you're probably right. The fact is if your family has a recipe you've used for years, that's your recipe and your region. Don't let the debate dissuade you from making your recipe truly YOURS!

Pick out a few pulled pork crock pot recipes so you can start saving time and money by doing a little Crock Pot Cooking in your kitchen!