Along with 200,000 Amazon Prime members who purchased an Instant Pot this last Prime Day, I also snagged one during a recent Amazon blow out deal. The deal only lasted for a few hours so I rushed to my local Best Buy and price beat it and get my new Instant Pot instantly!
I have been testing various recipes and found that no one had pubilshed a good pulled pork recipe yet. So here we go, after a few tries of cooking pulled pork, I am now confident that this is a tried and true recipe to cook perfect pulled pork in an Instant Pot! Although you can adapt this recipe to a slow cooker, it’s best to follow directions exactly and use an Instant Pot pressure cooker.
My local IGA supermarket has the freshest meat and I chose a pork should blade roast (no bone). Other recipes will use a Boston butt or pork butt. This is pretty much the same thing. A pork butt is actually a shoulder and not the rear end. The roast I used was about 3.8 pounds, perfect for this recipe. Just remember to trim some of the fat off or you will end up with a more greasy pulled pork.
Instant Pot Perfect Pulled Pork Recipe
This is the perfect Instant Pot pulled pork recipe.
Ingredients
- 3.5 lbs of pork shoulder blade roast
- 1 package of your favourite spice mix; I used Club House Slow Cookers BBQ Pulled Pork seasoning mix, or make your own
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 4 tbsp brown sugar
- 100-200 mL of your favourite BBQ sauce
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 1.5 cups of water
- salt & pepper
Instructions
- Rough cut pork shoulder into large chunks (about the size of your fist or larger)
- Set "Saute" on your Instant Pot and wait for it to become hot
- Add 2 tbsp of oil into Instant Pot
- Add meat to brown all sides (3 minutes a side works very well)
- Mix 1 cup of water with spice mix, 2 tbsp of garlic powder and 1 tbsp of onion powder
- Once all pork has been browned, remove all meat from your Instant Pot
- Add 1/2 cup of water to Instant Pot to deglaze bottom of pot; use wooden spoon to scrape up all bits
- Add pork and spice mix back into Instant Pot
- Lock lid and set venting to "Sealing" on Instant Pot
- Choose the "Meat" setting and set to 90 minutes (60 minutes if you use less than 3 lbs of pork)
- Wait for pressure to build up (you should see the pressure pin pop up after a few minutes)
- After 90 minutes of pressure cooking, let your Instant Pot naturally release pressure (should take 15-30 minutes)
- After waiting, turn release valve to "Venting" to ensure all pressure has been released. (Never attempt to open the Instant Pot while it is still under pressure!)
- Use tongs to pull apart all pork (should be super tender by now)
- Add 4 tbsp of brown sugar and 100-200 mL of your favourite BBQ sauce
- Use Saute function again if sauce needs to reduce down (only if it's too watery; normally if you keep pulling apart the pork and stirring, juices will get absorbed by the pork)
This is a tried and true recipe that I have made multiple times. Always turns out great!