There is nothing better than a recipe that wows and ALSO proves to be incredibly easy. This recipe is both. Once you have gathered all of your ingredients, your slow cooker does the bulk of the work! One of the best parts is that the leftovers can be better than the initial recipe itself!

Ingredients:

Ingredients

3.75 – 4 pound bone-in pork butt roast. We love the quality of the pork delivered from Crowd Cow
1 Red onion, cut into fairly large wedges
6-8 garlic cloves. In my house, more is always better!
1 Tbsp. kosher salt
2 Tsp. course ground pepper
1 Tbsp. dried oregano
2 Bay leaves
.75 cup Pineapple or Apple juice
.75 cup cola (made with cane sugar, rather than corn syrup, if you can find it). Coca Cola now has their old style cane sugar cola in the bottles!

Instruction

Here is the best part…the simplicity! Trim a bit of the fat cap off of the pork butt. There should be a significant amount left, but I find removing about 1/4 of the fat has best results. Score what is left of the fat cap and place roast into the crock pot fat cap to the side. Add balance of the ingredients, close and seal lid and set to low temp for 7.5 hours. Your job here is almost done!

Once the slow cooker is done, you should have an amazingly browned top and fall-apart roast sitting in some pretty amazing juices! Remove the roast to a cutting board and let rest for 15 or so mins. Using your hands, or 2 forks, pull the pork apart into chunks, leaving some chunks larger than others (this just makes the texture more interesting! Remove any excessive fat that is left, although most will have rendered into the juice that flavored the roast! Yum! Do not toss the juice just yet…

Transfer pork to very lightly oiled sheet pan and spread out. Pour some of the juice over top just to put moisture evenly. Crisp under the broiler just until crispy at edges and beautifully browned all over! If you intend to only use a portion of the pork right away, you can broil only what you will be serving and store the balance (with some of the juice) to broil or to pan fry at the point that you intend to use.

Serving

So…many…options. Tortillas, salsa, chopped onion, cilantro, diced tomato, salsa verde…sky is the limit! For this meal, I went simple with flour tortillas, some diced tomato, serrano chilis, leafy greens and cilantro. Leftovers this morning were super crisped in a pan and were as, if not more, delicious than the first go around!

If you like this recipe, you may also like my amazing recipe for Carne Asada lettuce wraps!! Give it a try!!

Kristen Cooks

May 4, 2023

Asian inspired veggie salad feast

Crispy Asian pork with mixed greens, crunchy radishes, spicy Fresno chili, shaved carrot and squash. This recipe is pumped up with soba and rice vermicelli noodles. Soy/ginger dressing adds just the right amount of ZING!

The inspiration

I found a recipe in the Jamie Oliver “Everyday Super Food” cookbook, that beautifully combined brown rice noodles with any variety of greens and veg and crispy fried ginger beef. I have gone back to this recipe dozens of times, mainly because I love ground meat (I swap in pork) as a protein, but also because it is amazingly balanced. Protein, veggies, and carbs combine for a meal that you feel good about eating.

Check out the book here If you prefer online recipes, there are loads of free recipes from all of his books on the Jamie Oliver website. It is a great source for menu ideas. https://www.jamieoliver.com/

Recipe tweaks

The original recipe leaves the choice of salad vegetables to you, so the sky is the limit. I chose butter lettuce and red gem lettuce. As far as veggies, shaved carrots and summer squash worked out nicely. Rather than brown rice noodles, swapped in some soba and vermicelli rice noodles. I also use half the indicated sesame oil and sub in grapeseed to temper the taste.

The fun of this recipe is the absolute flexibility to make it as you want it!

Asian inspired veggie salad feast

Recipe by kristenCourse: Kristen CooksCuisine: Salad, Noodle SaladDifficulty: Easy

Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

Cooking time

minutes

Calories

470

kcal

Note: calorie content is auto generated and may not be accurate

Ingredients

Half head of red gem lettuce
Half head of butter lettuce
2 carrots, shaved
1 summer squash shaved (do not include seeds)
4 radishes, sliced
2 green onions, chopped, green and white included
1 hot chili of your choice, deseeded and sliced into rings (optional)
For the Pork
1 lb. ground pork
1 tbsp. sesame oil
1 tbsp. grapeseed oil
2 tsp. honey
3 inch piece of whole gingerroot, rough chopped
4 cloves garlic
4 star anise
6 oz. combination of rice, Soba, Udon, or other noodles
For the dressing
2 tsp. fish sauce
2 tsp. sugar
Juice of one lime

Directions

In small food processor add garlic and ginger and pulse until finely chopped
Cook the noodles according to package. Set aside
Heat oil in large frying pan on medium-high heat. Add star anise, and half of the garlic/ginger from the processor
When garlic is fragrant, but not browning, add in the pork and continually break up as it cooks. Once the pork is beginning to brown, add in the honey. Note: if there is too much liquid or oil in the pan, drain off most and then continue to brown until crispy
Add the soy sauce, fish sauce and lime juice to the garlic and ginger mixture in processor. Whir until consistency of a dressing. Test and adjust. The original recipe called for far more lime juice, and no sugar. I adjusted here for my taste.
Arrange lettuce, veggies and noodles on tray. Add pork and sprinkle the green onion and chili pepper over. Dressing can be set to side to dress each individual plate, or over the tray to dress it family style