Instant Pot Pork Butt Roast
Oh my gosh! You childish person! The "butt" in Pork Butt Roast refers to the barrel it was stored in, not the the pig's hindquarters. Can you imagine?You can, can't you? You're imagining shoving a pig butt-first into an Instant Pot right now, aren't you? And now I am too. Thanks, Obama.
Equipment
- 1 Instant Pot/Pressure Cooker I mean... that's in the title, right?
Ingredients
- 3-5 lbs pork butt roast
Rub
- 1 Tbs garlic powder My usual caveat of how I always add WAY more garlic than called for applies.
- 1 Tbs basil
- 1 Tbs black pepper
- 1 Tbs Paprika optional, but it adds a good kick
Broth
- 3 cups chicken broth veggie works too
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup War chester...wursti...Worcestershire sauce Lea and Perrins is the best, hands down
- 1.5 Tbs minced garlic see above note on garlic
- 1.5 Tbs corn starch
Instructions
- Cut the fat off. Pork butt roast has a 1/4" thick layer of fat along one side. Even as unhealthy as I am, I try to cut a lot of that off. This can take 5-20 minutes depending on knife quality and how thorough you are.
- Split the meat into manageable chunks. The more surface area, the more rub you get and the more of that awesome searing you'll get. However, the more surface area, the longer searing is going to take. Choose wisely. I find even a 3 pound chunk of meat is best cut into 2 chunks. If you're doing 5 pounds, probably 4 chunks.
- Set the Instant Pot to "saute" on high. Or heat a pan on the stove
- Apply the rub to the meat, warning anyone else that you will have "meat hands" and will therefore not be aiding with any child or pet care for a bit.
- When the Instant Pot is ready, sear the meat 2-4 minutes per side. Depending on the size of your pot and the size of your meat chunks, you may be able to comfortably do two chunks at a time. Remove the meat and set it aside on a plate.
- Add the broth ingredients to the Instant Pot (or the pan you used for searing). Remember to save 1.5 Tbs of liquid to mix the corn starch into before adding that to the pot.
- Use a cooking utensil (I prefer my flat wooden thing that is somewhere between a spatula just a flat piece of wood) to scrape up the pork leavings from the pan and mix them in well.
- Put the trivet and the pork into the pot. The trivet handles are usually under all that broth so it won't help you remove the meat, but it's nice to have it off directly from the pot surface.
- Pressure cook on high for 1 hour + 10 minutes for each pound of meat over 2. (so 70 min for a 3 lbs roast).
- Pressure release naturally for 15 minutes, then quick release. Open the pot and serve the meat. It will be tender and fall apart.
Notes
A smaller roast allows you to cook veggies in the pot with it, but I always like a lot of meat so I'm still experimenting with the timing for this. There are two possible approaches:
- Cook the sliced veggies from the start -- onions are definitely good this way, and it's better for large veggie pieces.
- Reduce the pressure cooking time for the meat anywhere from 3-15 minutes (recipes vary, and it depends on the veggie). When the timer finished, quick release the pressure, add the veggies, and then pressure cook on high for the amount of time you shortened before.
- Try adding a couple bay leaves or some allspice to the broth -- or rosemary or honey!
- Swap out the vinegar for balsamic or red wine vinegar.
- Play with the rub ingredients -- consider white pepper, ginger, brown sugar, thyme, or cinnamon.
Pork soup
Putting this here because I use the broth from the pork butt roast above as the base.Note that I'm very noncommittal about the quantities of the ingredients, because it's very much to taste. I like a very thick soup, personally, so I'm going to add more corn starch. I also love mushrooms, so I go much more on that than the other veggies.
Servings: 2 servings
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup broth from cooking Instant Pot Pork Butt Roast see above recipe
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 Tbs corn starch vigorously mixed in an equal amount water
- 3-6 medium white mushrooms or baby bellas, chopped or sliced
- 1-2 green onions, chopped
- 1/2-1 cups chopped or sliced carrots
- 1/4-1/2 cup cooked barley.
- 1 serving pulled pork see above recipe
Instructions
- If you refrigerated the broth from the pork butt roast, you will have a bunch of fat that congealed at the top of the container. Use a spoon to scoop that out and throw it away.Or, if it's your kind of thing, add it in with the liquid in the next step. Or save it for some other thing. I imagine this can be used for cooking fat.
- In a medium pot, mix the water, broth, and corn starch and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat to simmer
- If you want thick soup, simmer for a while to evaporate some of that water.
- Add the solid ingredients and simmer for 5 minutes so the veggies soak up some of that liquid.
Notes
More experimentation!
- Appropriate veggies to add include peas (frozen is fine, but oh man, fresh snap peas!), broccoli (chopped small), bamboo shoots, tofu, and white or red onion.
- Swap out the barley for some ramen noodles or rice. Both rice and barley take longer to cook, which is why I suggest using it cooked already in the ingredients list, but ramen noodles take but 3 minutes. You can add those in with the veggies and meat.
- Add. Moar. Garlic.