All-day pork shoulder with apple cider from Small Victories: Recipes, Advice + Hundreds of Ideas for Home-Cooking Triumphs (page 158) by Julia Turshen

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Always check the publication for a full list of ingredients. An Eat Your Books index lists the main ingredients and does not include 'store-cupboard ingredients' (salt, pepper, oil, flour, etc.) - unless called for in significant quantity.

Notes about this recipe

  • thefritschkitchen on March 17, 2026

    Easy peasy and hard to mess up. Just sits in the low oven all day and comes out amazing. Even better made ahead

  • heyksquared on January 01, 2026

    This was terrific! I thought the pork had great flavor, though agree with other commenters the fat should be removed after it’s done cooking. My pork was done in about five and a half hours.

  • GinaRhodes on October 10, 2025

    Delicious and low-fuss. Couldn’t find a boneless pork shoulder but it didn't matter. I imagine it would freeze great in its juices. Needs a nice crusty bread to sop it up.

  • ellwell on December 19, 2022

    This was good and an an easy recipe for a Saturday spent at home. I shredded the beef, separated the cider from the fat and then added it all back together. Then I thought it was a little bland, so I added in some maple syrup/Dijon/cider back into the pan. Very good

  • chawkins on September 05, 2022

    Quite good but time consuming as you need to hang around and flip the pork every two hours. I had five plus pounds of pork in two pieces that I cooked for eight hours and they were very shreddable with a lot of bark. I used honey and alcohol-free apple cider.

  • snoozermoose on January 15, 2022

    This was tasty, though not my favorite braised pork shoulder dish. I used a cider from my local apple orchard with a bit more tartness, but we still found it a little too sweet. Next time I'll try a hard cider as others here did. I only cooked my pork for 6.5 hours, and it was still plenty shreddable. I had the same problem with the fat content in the sauce as others here did. I tried skimming off as much as I could, but there was still a solid layer of fat once it refrigerated. It did improve the second day we ate this, so if you're going to make this for company, I suggest making it ahead of time, skimming the cold fat off, and then reheating.

  • bernalgirl on January 24, 2021

    Absolutely delicious, and the house smelled like heaven. I used country-style ribs (boneless) because that’s what I had, and it took nearly the same amount of time for the collagens to break down, but with the added benefit of more surface area to brown. I do think I’d use a hard dry cider next time as the sauce was slightly sweet for our tastes but a squeeze of lemon juice balanced it out.

  • averythingcooks on November 16, 2020

    Oh yes .....this was good! I also used a hard cider (strongbow) and used maple syrup with a 50/50 mix of Dijon & grainy mustard. My boneless shoulder was just under the specified size (with no obvious fat cap) but I still used the full recipe for the liquids. Seven hours was perfect for easily fork shredded meat that was then stirred back into the cooking juices. Dinner for 2 tonight, tomorrow’s lunch for T and another dinner for 2 planned for Wednesday. We absolutely loved this :)

  • dc151 on October 03, 2020

    Great recipe! Meat stayed moist and great flavor. Easy to put together. What the recipe fails to mention is that if you want to shred the meat, cook it to an internal temperature of 195 or so. Collagen will break down. Cooking time can be longer than expected.

  • TrishaCP on March 31, 2020

    This was good. I didn’t remove the fat while roasting it. However, I did remove large amounts of fat from the braising liquid after refrigerating the pork and liquid overnight. I also found that I needed to add an extra cup or so of apple cider to the roasting pan while the pork cooked to avoid burning everything.

  • puddlemere on October 28, 2019

    I loved this. I did trim off a good amount of fat before cooking and I think it helped with the fattiness after cooking. I also cut the pork into smaller pieces (about 3 inches) and only cooked it about 4.5 hours, but that was plenty. I agree that mixing the pork back in with the cider was the key to the great flavor.

  • tmatthey on February 18, 2018

    Oops! Just learned (via ingredients listed, which I tabbed on by accident, that the apple cider was supposed to be alcohol free. Um ... I specifically chose this recipe to use up a bottle of hard cider occupying space in my fridge). Got a sensational result. Supposed to serve 8 to 10, I use a 4 lb boneless shoulder, since I was only cooking for a total of 4 and wanted some leftovers for an elderly neighbor couple and ... well, everyone else went back for seconds and thirds. I think I am gonna keep on using a hard cider in the future, too. I did, remove the slab and bits of fat on the pork when shredding the pork but only just now read the notes of others and am pondering. Did not find the meat fatty despite NOT culling any of the fat off of the (hard) cider based broth. Not enough of a cook to know if hard cider v soft cider made the difference or just cutting the slabs and bits of fat off of the shoulder as I shredded made the difference or what.

  • hirsheys on September 17, 2017

    This smelled like absolute heaven while it cooked (for 7 hours) and has a nice pork-y flavor to it. The one major thing I would change next time is to take the fat cap off of the pork. The recipe does not tell you to de-fat the pork and actually implies that you should keep it on "put the pork in to the dish fat-side up"... That said, I find this dish far too fatty tasting and the hardened fat in the leftovers was excessive. (Should have poured it off like Emily Hope did.) I can definitely see myself making this again, though - it's super easy to make and the sum is definitely greater than its parts. Also, I think it would be good on a sandwich, as well as on the side of a starch. (I had it tonight with spoonbread.)

  • Emily Hope on October 18, 2016

    This was a great, easy pork recipe--lots of flavor once the pulled pork was mixed into the cider (an essential step--otherwise the pork is just OK). I poured most of the fat off the braising liquid before mixing the pork back in. My pork did burn a little bit during the initial roast at 475 (due to the maple syrup in the marinade), but I just trimmed off the really black bits and it was fine. Served with buttermilk mashed potatoes and an arugula salad.

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