Follow our step-by-step, photo illustrated instructions for making delicious Pulled Pork BBQ in your oven. For that crispy bark look that all the best pit masters go for, we’re using a dry rub on the outside. We’re also including recipes for both the dry rub and our Eastern North Carolina-style barbecue sauce. We’re roasting it low and slow in the oven but you could also do it on the grill.
As long as I live in the South, I eat pig pickings, pulled pork, chopped or sliced barbecue. BBQ is KING!.
I know I’m going into a place that can make a lot of people feel and think a lot of different things, especially here in North Carolina. Still, I’m ready to do it so I can give you this recipe for fresh Pulled Pork BBQ to make at home. Some people will say it can’t be done in an oven, a crock pot, or without wood and a lot of smoke. Most of the time, I agree, but you have to make the best of what you have.
A big grill or pit is my first choice for cooking food outside. If I can’t do that, I’d rather cook it in the oven than in a crock pot. Ooops, I’ve stepped on toes again. Of course, you’ve got time and space for your own opinions about barbecue in the Comments section below. I want you to share yours, so don’t be shy about speaking up… OK?
Though this is my first blog post about barbecue, it most likely won’t be the last. There is a lot to talk about when it comes to barbecue, and this recipe will only touch on a few of them. This is a simple dry rub that you can use. I’ll also give you a recipe for our Eastern North Carolina vinegar-based barbecue sauce to go with it. I didn’t say I’d give you all the family secrets just yet though.
I remember how my dad would stack cinder blocks to make a fire pit so he could cook a pig all night. There was “hog killing” time at the start, which is a whole other set of stories in and of itself. Before cooking the pigs, daddy would start a wood fire in the pit he had dug a few days before. This was called “dressing.” He watched over the pig all night, and by morning, he was ready to start breaking it down so he could take it into the kitchen and chop it up to make barbecue.
For them, making barbecue was all about the smells, the smoke, the taste, and even the mess. Daddy did it all and everyone enjoyed what he prepared. While I could go on, let’s just jump right in and begin. Just thinking about it makes me hungry. How about you? Ready to cook some pig? Good… Let’s get cooking!.
You need some pork of course. Here’s a quick look at where it’s coming from. If you’re having a pig picking, you’ll need the whole thing. We also do those, but this time we’ll be using either a Boston Butt or a Fresh Picnic Shoulder. Can you find it on the chart?.
Oven Pulled Pork BBQ Recipe: You’ll need these ingredients to get started cooking. I make my own dry rub and my own vinegar based barbecue sauce. The store labelled this as a “fresh whole picnic. “In my area, Boston Butts are the most popular, and picnic shoulder comes in a close second.” This piece weighed just a bit over 9 pounds. You’ll need to figure on about half of that for actual barbecue once it’s cooked.
Give it a good rinse under cold running water, washing all sides, the top and, the bottom. Throw away the pad that soaks up liquids that comes with the tray it’s sitting on along with the plastic wrap. I like to leave it sitting in the tray while I’m working with it.
I like to trim off a lot of the excess fat. This will be another area of contention amongst folks that cook pig. There will be a lot that doesn’t get taken away, so I don’t think it will be a big deal to get rid of some of the visible extra. You will need a sharp knife, and you should be careful as you cut away any loose meat or extra fat from the sides and top.
You may also find a large vein as you’re trimming. Hopefully it belongs to the pork and not you. (Smile) I like to remove it as much as possible just for better presentation purposes. Sorry, I guess I should have warned you about this picture ahead of time.
Here, I’m getting into it pretty deep. Here are some spots I want to rub with something before I start cooking. You can see there is still a lot of fat on them.
I managed to trim this much away from the top and along the sides. There’s a bunch more on the bottom but I’m not worried about that at the present time.
Now, shake on a couple of Tablespoons of the Worcestershire Sauce. Give it a good overall coating.
Shake on about a Tablespoon of Liquid Smoke. You can probably find this product in your grocery store, usually around the spices and marinades sections. We’re trying to add some flavor since we won’t be able to use real smoke while the food is cooking.
Use your hands and just rub the liquids into the meat. Work it under any flaps that might be attached and cover as much area as you can.
Squeeze a couple of Tablespoons of Mustard onto the meat. You can use about any type of Mustard you prefer here. The mustard isn’t going to actually add any flavor to the meat. We are going to use mustard to cover the pork so that the dry rub spices we will be adding soon stick better.
Flip it over. This skin side is called the “fat cap. “We are also going to coat it, but it won’t really soak up any of the spices.” I only wanted to show it to you because it won’t be used in the final picture. Besides, I like to be thorough in these things. We could have just trimmed it away in the beginning and baked it later to make pork skins. I’ll save that for another recipe.
Give the fat cap a coat of mustard as well. The butter will melt into the fat at the bottom of the pan. Along the way, it might add some flavor. Just rub it down with a thin layer of mustard.
If we were cooking this out on the grill, the skin would crisp up and get hard. Some folks like to add a bit of that into their barbecue. Its pretty tasty when cooked that way and, daddy always chopped it up into the barbecue he made. This won’t get crispy from sitting in the bottom of a roasting pan once the fat starts to break down, though, because we’re baking it.
Flip it back over and lets add the Dry Rub. The dry rub is just a mixture of spices for adding flavor to the meat. You will find thousands of versions of how to make dry rub if you start searching for them. Most of the folks that cook ribs, briskets, chicken and pork, make their own rubs. You should give it a try sometime and create one of your own. Then you can have your own “signature” rub. Keep it secret though, thats the fun part.
You can also purchase a variety of dry rubs in your local grocery store. Lawry’s Seasoning Salt would work well along with many others.
It’s called a dry rub for a reason. You’re suppose to rub it into the meat and work it into it really good. The problem is that it’s covered in mustard, and rubbing it doesn’t seem to do what it’s supposed to do. Instead, it just turns into little balls of spice.
Just use your fingers and pat it into the mustard coating. You just want to be sure it’s sticking to the outside. I did the top, bottom and all sides until it was coated all over.
Next, line a baking pan with Aluminum Foil. There needs to be something about two inches deep because this meat will make a lot of fat in the pan. The foil makes for simple cleanup of course.
Place some plastic wrap across the the pan in both directions. Place the meat inside the pan.
Fold the sides of the plastic wrap up and around the meat. Wrap it securely and then just sit the whole pan in your refrigerator overnight.
That’s right… overnight. We want to just let it soak up the spices as much as possible before we start cooking.
Next Day: Remove the plastic wrap AND, the TRAY, if you had left it in. We’re ready to start cooking some pig… low and slow.
Preheat the oven to – 250 degrees. Once you’ve reached cooking temperature, place the pan on one of the lower racks in your oven.
Just as if we were cooking this on the grill, we’re baking it Low and Slow. The meat needs to be cooked at 250º, and the time will depend on how much it weighs. You should figure just about one hour for each pound of meat that you have.
Should you decide to cook this on a grill, you should do so over indirect heat at the same temperature. It will also take about an hour per pound of meat.
You will want to check it after its cooked for about 4 hours. We will baste it with some of our vinegar-based sauce after that, and we will do that every hour until the meat is done. Hopefully, you’ve got a good Meat Thermometer to keep track.
Speaking of grills… this is a pig cooker. Yes, this is a shameless plug for my brothers grills. We believe its one of the best pig cookers you’ll find anywhere around. He started renting and selling these years ago at his grocery store. When he left the grocery business, he kept the cooker part of the business and has sold a lot of these. For the past few months, I’ve been riding with him as we deliver them all over Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. He’s got them all across America and down in the Bahamas. They’re just that good.
I built a website for him several years back and you can learn all about them at www. CarolinaPigCookers. com. I’ve even got some video’s of the folks we’ve been delivering too. My brother and I have joked about making a reality type TV show about delivering cookers. Maybe one day. Do check out the website though. The cookers have many available options. You Know You Want One!.
I’m sorry. I guess it’s just the former radio announcer in me coming out. I have to do a commercial every once in awhile. Thank you for listening. We now return you to our regular scheduled recipe.
This is after four hours at 250º in my oven. It’s looking a little dry on the top but that’s what I wanted. That crispy outside edge is called the “bark” and it will be full of flavor when its finished. I love it.
Use a basting brush and, brush on some of the Eastern North Carolina Vinegar Based Sauce. I’ve included the recipe in the printable at the bottom along with the recipe for the dry rub. Daddy use to call this a “mop. He would tie some cotton rags to the end of a stick and use it as a brush to spread the sauce over the whole pig while it was cooking.
It keeps the surface of the meat moist as it’s cooking so it doesn’t dry out too much. He also liked to put some butter and lemon slices in the mopping sauce he made. In the small amount of sauce we’re making, it wouldn’t take much lemon juice to make it taste bad, and the butter will rise to the top when the sauce cools. I’d do it if it were a whole hog though… just to follow the family tradition.
The best way to cook barbecue in North Carolina is the subject of some “controversy,” in case you didn’t know. People in the western part of the state like their tomato-based sauce, which is also sometimes called Lexington Style. People in the eastern part of the state like what we call a vinegar-based sauce. I live in the Piedmont region of the state, which puts me pretty much in the middle. However, my family likes the Eastern North Carolina Vinegar Based Barbecue Sauce better than the ones made with ketchup or tomato sauce or paste.
I like them both but, given a choice, I’ll opt for the vinegar based. If you go a little further south, like to South Carolina, they have one that is made with mustard. I think Alabama has one called “White Sauce” that is made of…wait for it…mayonnaise.
The BBQ Song below will give you a good idea of what all the confusion is about. Since we’re cooking this pork low and slow… we’ve got time for some entertainment.
You might like to listen to THE BBQ SONG by Rhett and Link, who are from Lillington, North Carolina, which is close by. These two guys do a lot of comedy videos about all sorts of things. They live about 30 miles from my town, and they came by to say hello on one of my radio shows back when I was in the business. It pokes a bit of fun about the whole Southern BBQ thing. Just be back before the pork is done… OK?.
Pork is considered done nowadays at an internal temperature of 145º. You will want to cook your pork shoulder, picnic or Boston Butt up to 190º. Because the temperature is higher, the proteins and collagen will break down even more. This will make the pork juicer and taste better. Let it cook on up to the full 190 degree mark before taking it out of the oven.
When the pork is done, remove it from the oven. Be careful not to spill all those hot juices on you.
If you recall, I started out with a 9 pound piece of pork. The actual cooking time for me was 7 hours. I couldn’t find my oven thermometer, and I think my oven is cooking a little hotter than it says it is. You want to cook it on low heat for as long as it takes to reach 190º, though. Your actual cooking time will vary based on your oven.
Remove the pork from the pan and place it on a large sheet of aluminum foil. I just used a couple of forks to lift the pork from the pan. I had to lift the meat out of the pan because the fat cap on the bottom was stuck to the foil. I’m not using it anyway so, no problem.
Gather the foil up and wrap it tightly around the cooked pork. What… you thought you were fixing to eat it NOW? (Smile).
If you have a cooler, you can place this inside the cooler. If not, just do like I did and leave it out on the counter top. The meat needs to REST for about one hour before you pull it apart. This just requires patience and restraint. You can do it though and you’ll be happily rewarded for it.
The meat will be much more juicy if you let it rest like this instead of starting to tear it apart right away. During this time, the internal temperature will rise another 5º to 10º or so. This keeps the meat at a steady temperature so the juices can soak back into it. When it’s done, the finished product will hold the juices that would have been running out if you cut it right away.
Put the meat in a clean baking or roasting pan after letting it rest for an hour. Remove the towel and foil. As you can see in the photo above, this is the bottom. The fat cap came off when I took it out of the roasting pan, so I don’t have to do that.
I grabbed two forks and just scraped away some more of the fat that was remaining. But I’ve never grown to like the fat. You might like it and want to leave it in. Some folks leave it in their BBQ while others remove it. Its a personal choice so make yourself happy and do what pleases you. I promise not to argue with you about taking it out though.
Use the forks like bear claws and start pulling the meat apart. Remember, its still pretty hot so, don’t burn your fingers trying to pull it apart. The bone will pull out really easy if the meat is cooked properly.
Continue to use the forks and pull the meat apart… thus the name… Pulled Pork. Creative huh?
Some times, when we pick a whole hog or pig, we just let people come up and take what they want from a cooked pig. That’s OK if you’re cooking with wood and smoking the meat a good bit. You’ll have some good flavor from the smoke ring that forms just beneath the skin as it cooks.
Here’s a piece of the top of the meat with it’s bark. The spices that were baked into the meat gave it a good taste after it was all mixed together. It was really quite tasty at this point but… let’s make it even better.
I weighed this out and had just an ounce or two over five pounds of meat. I started out nine pounds, so trimming, cooking, and taking out the bone caused me to lose four. Its still a lot of meat and well worth the time to fix it. To be considered “pulled” you will want to leave it in shreds like its pictured. If you want, you could also chop it up. When it comes to barbecue, do whatever makes you happy.
Start out slowly in adding the sauce. Sauce is meant to compliment the meat and not overpower it. This is the fun part, because now you can add some sauce, taste it, add more, and taste it again. Drizzle the sauce over the cooked meat and then stir it in.
Just jump in with both hands and mix the sauce in really good. Be gentle with it though… you don’t want it turning into a bunch of mushiness from overworking it. Taste it, then add more sauce, vinegar, pepper, whatever you think it needs. Make it your own Special Sauce.
Serve it while it’s warm. Barbecue is best when enjoyed shortly after its made. If it lasts that long, it can be kept in the fridge for a few days. If necessary, it can also be frozen. While I write this, I have several cartons of this in my freezer. I think it will change the taste a bit.
This stuff makes some great sandwiches. Just add some of our Creamy Cole Slaw and you’re good to go. Serve it with Baked Beans, Potato Salad or, whatever your favorite side dish might be. Don’t forget the Sweet Tea either. Make sure you have extra sauce, pepper flakes, and Texas Pete on hand so that your family and guests can spice it up however they like. I could eat this stuff everyday… even for breakfast. Must be a Southern boy… right?.
Making pulled pork with crispy, flavorful bark in the oven is easy with just a few simple tips. Getting that nice crust that you expect from low and slow barbecue is possible without outdoor cooking.
Bark is the crust on the exterior of smoked or roasted meats like brisket, ribs, and pulled pork. It forms through the process of the Maillard reaction, which happens when proteins and sugars in the meat are exposed to heat.
Juicy pulled pork paired with crunchy bark makes the perfect bite. But most home cooks use the oven not a smoker for large cuts of pork butt. So how can you get great bark indoors?
What Causes Bark on Pork Butt?
Bark forms through:
- Dry heat and air circulation
- Surface dehydration
- Spices and rub reacting
Smokers, grills, and low oven temperatures between 225-275°F create the ideal environment. Extended cooking time at a low temp gives a thorough cook while avoiding moisture loss.
Spices and seasonings give color and flavor. As juices evaporate from the surface, the rub concentrates and caramelizes into the crusty bark.
Preventing a Soggy Exterior
Exposed meat will form better bark. Any foil or lid trapping moisture on the surface will make the bark soft and mushy.
Letting the exterior dry out is critical. The melting fat and collagen internally keep the pork moist.
How to Get More Bark in the Oven
Having trouble getting crispy bark from your oven-roasted pork butt? Try these oven bark boosting tips:
Season Well – Use a spice rub with sugar and salt to encourage browning and bark formation. Apply it liberally over all surfaces.
Avoid Foil – Never cover pork with foil as it braises in its own juices, creating a pot roast texture, not barbecue pull.
Elevate on a Rack – Lifting the pork on a rack promotes air circulation for better browning.
Turn on Broil – At the end, broil for 2-5 minutes to complete bark crisping once the internal temp hits 195-205°F. Watch closely to avoid burning.
Air Circulation – Place pork near the fan if your oven has a convection setting. The fan helps evaporate surface moisture.
Dry the Skin – For pork with skin like pork belly or shoulder, dry it thoroughly and score so seasoning and smoke can penetrate.
Higher Heat Last Hour – Increasing the temp from 250°F to 275-300°F for the last hour firms up the bark.
Let It Rest – Allowing it to rest afterwards allows moisture to redistribute for a juicy interior.
Brush with Oil or Glaze – Hitting it with a light coat of oil or bbq glaze at the end will make the spices pop with color.
With the right technique, you can absolutely get a good bark on oven pulled pork. While it may not be quite as thick and crispy as from a smoker, it will have nice texture and flavor.
Oven Pulled Pork Recipe
This oven pulled pork recipe using pork butt results in excellent bark every time.
Ingredients:
- 4 lb pork butt
- Dry rub – use your favorite or make a simple blend with brown sugar, chili powder, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and pepper.
- BBQ wood chips – optional for extra smoke flavor
- Spray oil or glaze – for finishing
Instructions:
- Generously coat entire pork butt with dry run, patting to adhere.
- Place pork on a baking rack in a rimmed sheet pan. Do not cover.
- Roast at 250°F for 1 hour per pound, 8-10 hours total.
- At 195°F internal temp, increase oven to 300°F.
- When internal temp reaches 200-205°F, remove and tent with foil.
- Optional – once rested 15 minutes, unwrap and quickly broil each side for 1-2 minutes to crisp bark.
- Brush with oil or glaze to finish.
- Allow meat to rest 30-60 minutes before pulling.
The initial low temp combined with the final high heat creates the perfect bark texture. While not exactly like smoker results, this consistently yields pulled pork with nice dark exterior crust.
Oven Pulled Pork Bark Tips
- Dry thoroughly before adding any rub
- Use a sugar-based rub or glaze
- Elevate on a rack on a sheet pan
- Keep uncovered in a low (250°F) oven
- Turn oven to high broil at end to firm up bark
- Let pork rest before pulling meat
With the right techniques, you can absolutely achieve excellent crispy, textured bark for pulled pork cooked in the oven. A flavorful spice rub, uncovered roasting, and high heat at the end are the secrets to success.
While oven bark takes a little more effort than a smoker, the results are moist, fall-apart tender pork butt encased in a deliciously caramelized crunchy crust. I hope these tips help you turn out amazing oven-baked pulled pork every time.
How to get TWICE the Bark on Pulled Pork! | Ft. Kosmos Q
FAQ
How to get crispy bark on pulled pork?
Can I get bark in the oven?
Should I cover my pulled pork in the oven?
How to get a good bark on brisket in the oven?
Can you cook pulled pork in the oven?
Making pulled pork in the oven is the key to the most tender, juicy, shredded pork. This oven roasted pork shoulder is cooked low and slow and makes the perfect BBQ pork for sandwiches, potlucks, and great leftovers! No smoker or grill needed. For the easiest pulled pork, make it in the oven!
What is the best way to make pulled pork?
There are many, many ways to make pulled pork (the oven! a smoker! slow cooker!), and this is, by far, the absolute best way I have ever found to make it. The pulled pork turns out incredibly tender, falls right apart, and is packed to the brim with a sweet and spicy flavor. Let’s discuss! What Type of Meat is Best for Pulled Pork?
Can you cook a pulled pork BBQ with pan drippings?
Hi Charlie, I’m thankful you found Taste of Southern and I do hope the Pulled Pork BBQ turns out well for you. Its not going to hurt anything if you baste the butt with some of the pan drippings as it cooks. That’s up to you. I don’t think you’ll have need to remove any fat during the cooking process as it doesn’t normally create that much liquid.
How do you cook pulled pork without a smoker?
The best pulled pork recipe made right in the oven (no smoker required!) after an overnight brine and being covered in a simple dry rub. Sauce recipe included! Brine the Pork: Add salt to the cold water and stir until the salt is completely dissolved. Add the brown sugar and stir until completely dissolved, then stir in the liquid smoke.