Traeger Pulled Pork

Smoked Pulled Pork is a delicious, simple dinner. Cooked on a Traeger grill or made in your crockpot, it is the best game day recipe!

Prep Time5

Cook Time6

Resting Time1

Total Time7 5

Servings: people

Calories: 353kcal

Ingredients

2 tablespoons ground coffee
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon paprika
3.5 lbs boneless pork butt

Instructions

For the Traeger:

Make your coffee bbq rub. Mix your spices together and set aside. The coffee grounds really bring this seasoning together with rest of the spices.
Prepare your pork. I used Butcher Box's Pork Butt. FYI- pork butt is a pretty fatty cut of meat, so if you're looking for something leaner I'd go with a pork tenderloin. Trim a significant amount of fat off the pork butt and generously coat with your coffee BBQ rub, leave a small excess of fat on the exterior as this will create a nice bark and barrier to keep your meat tender on the smoker/grill.
Preheat your smoker or oven to 250 degrees, I like to use apple or cherry pellets/wood chips for my pork but any kind will work well. Put the pork on your smoker once preheated and close the lid. Set a timer for 3 hours.
At the 3 hour mark on your smoker you should have a really nice exterior bark on the pulled pork. At this time, you can wrap the pulled pork in tinfoil or use a heat safe covered baking dish and place the pork in that for 3 more hours.
The pork butt is finished when it hits an internal temperature of 200 degrees while wrapped, you can use an instant read thermometer to check this and insert right through the tinfoil to check or use the probes provided by Traeger. Let the pork butt rest for at least an hour before taking it out and pulling it. Serve with cornbread, veggies, and enjoy!

For the crockpot:

Whisk together Coffee BBQ rub. Trim the fat off the pork butt to help make it leaner. Generously coat the pork in the coffee BBQ rub on all sides.
Place the pork in the crockpot with 1/3 cup of water. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or until fork tender.
Remove the pork from the crockpot + pull the pork until it is shredded. Take some of the excess cooking liquid from the crockpot and ladle over the pulled pork for some extra flavor. Serve alongside veggies + cornbread.

Notes

Season your pork butt up to a day in advance to allow the salt and spices to dry marinate the meat, this will give some added flavor and give you a really nice exterior crust if cooking this on a smoker.

If you don't have a smoker, this can be easily done in the crockpot on low for 7-8 hours or in the oven in a covered baking dish at 250 degrees for 7-8 hours, just set it and forget it!

The key is to letting the pork rest for at least 1 hour after finished cooking. I usually turn the oven off and leave the pork in there for 1 hour but even up to 3 hours, it will stay warm and this gives the meat time to rest and reabsorb all of those juices it had a chance to cook in low and slow.

Use food grade gloves to shred your meat or two forks.

Nutrition