pulled pork sliders with blue cheese slaw.

F0r a long time, I was searching for this recipe.

I couldn’t quite find what I wanted, so I pieced together a few different ideas and came up with my own. I knew I wanted to make my pork in the slow cooker, so I found this recipe via Good Housekeeping and used it as a guide for timing. Even though, there’s not much to that, other than leave it on low and let it cook all day – or in my case, overnight.

Next was the barbecue sauce. I’d seen Alex Guarnaschelli make barbecued chicken on one of my favorite shows, Alex’s Day Off. Love her. Her barbecue sauce had intrigued me, so I sort of manipulated that recipe into my own. I love how it turned out – the flavors were very bright and sharp. I think the slow cooker causes them to mellow a bit, so it worked out perfectly.

This is a perfect recipe for entertaining because of the slow cooker. I left it on overnight, and awoke to my meat already done. From there, all you need to do is boil the sauce down so that it thickens, and then you’re done. The blue cheese coleslaw is super-simple, as well. I used Ina’s recipe – the only major change I made was that I used bagged coleslaw rather than my own veggies, which made it much easier.

The flavor combination of the sweet, slightly acidic barbecue sauce with the crazy-tender pork and the luscious blue cheese slaw is beyond a winner. I heart these sliders. Majorly.

Pulled Pork Sliders with Homemade BBQ Sauce

• 6 pounds boneless pork shoulder roast {pork butt, baby}
• 12 – 15 slider buns {you can use dinner rolls}
• Blue Cheese Slaw, recipe below

BBQ Sauce:

• 1 1/2 cups ketchup
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons dry mustard
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh garlic
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt

Add ingredients for BBQ sauce to your slow cooker. Give it a stir, and turn the heat to low. Trim the fat from the pork, cut remaining meat into large pieces if needed and add to the slow cooker. Make sure the meat is coated in the sauce, put the cover on, and leave it be for about 8 to 10 hours.

{For me, the easiest way was to do this the night before. I went to sleep, and woke up to perfectly cooked meat}

Remove the meat from the slow cooker with tongs and let it cool on a large platter or clean surface. Pour the sauce from the slow cooker into a saucepan and boil it down so that it thickens. Alternatively, you may turn your slow cooker to high and do it there. If there is fat sitting on the top of the sauce, skim it off.

Meanwhile, when cool enough to handle, shred the meat using two forks. As you’re doing this, you can remove any additional fat as you go. Add the shredded meat to the sauce and give it a mix. Store in a large covered container and refrigerate until serving.

Serves 12 – 15, maybe. It makes a lot!

Once you have made your slaw, and you’re ready to serve, just re-heat the pulled pork (I left it in a large oven-proof glass dish and re-heated it in the oven, you could also do it over the stove) and top each slider bun with pork and slaw. Enjoy!

Blue Cheese Slaw

Adapted from Ina Garten

• 1 1/2 bags cole slaw mix
• 2 cups good mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon celery salt
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) crumbled Roquefort blue cheese
• 1 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves

In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, both mustards, vinegar, celery salt, kosher salt, and pepper. Pour enough mayonnaise dressing over the cole slaw mix and toss to moisten well. Add crumbled blue cheese and parsley and toss together. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours to allow the flavors to meld. Serve cold or at room temperature.