Roast a Pork Shoulder and Feast for Days

Throughout these first few months of quarantine cooking we have embraced a "component cooking" approach to meal-planning, which helps alleviate some of the workload of preparing most, if not all, meals at home. We've applied this component cooking approach to slow-roasted pork shoulder, one of the best, low-effort, huge-payoff cooking projects around. The process goes like this: pick up an affordable 10-pound pork shoulder from the butcher counter on a weekend morning, roast it for about eight hours, serve some of it right away for dinner, and wrap up the leftovers for using in meals throughout the week.

Like a pot of beans, roast pork shoulder leftovers are versatile and can easily be incorporated into countless recipes—add them to breakfast hashes and quesadillas, stews and soups, or stir-fries and sandwiches. Here are our recommendations on how best to prep it, store it, and get the most mileage from it.

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The recipes

Ultra-Crispy Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder

This recipe starts the pork in a low oven for a leisurely eight-hour roast, resulting in spoonably tender meat. Then, we finish the shoulder off in a ripping hot 500°F oven to rapidly heat the skin until it's shatteringly crisp.

Crispy Pork Shoulder Hash With Charred Asparagus and Serrano Chili

This crispy pork hash is another great way to use up leftovers for a dish that has a weekend brunch vibe. Charred asparagus brings vegetal sweetness to the dish, while serrano chili provides background heat.

Roast Pork Shoulder Ragù in Bianco With Pasta

If you're in the pasta mood, give this pork ragù in bianco a try. This tomato-less meat sauce pairs roast pork leftovers with fennel, white wine, and lemon, perfect for tossing with fresh egg dough pasta.

More ways to use up your pork shoulder