How Guy Fieri Turns Canned Jackfruit Into The Star Of His BBQ Empanadas

When is BBQ pulled pork not really pulled pork? When you substitute jackfruit for pork. In Southeast Asia, jackfruit has been enjoyed for centuries, but it remains underrated and not well-known in the Western world. Fortunately, chefs like Guy Fieri are showing just how delicious and versatile this fruit can be in surprising ways. With less preparation and cooking than required for a pork shoulder, canned jackfruit can produce an almost identical pulled pork-style dish. Fieri's treatment of it — especially in his BBQ empanadas — makes a delicious and relatively quick substitute.

Instead of low and slow cooking for a pork roast, Fieri sautes onion and garlic, then adds the canned jackfruit for about seven minutes. By then, it's cooked enough to be broken down with a simple potato masher. The fibers of the fruit break apart almost exactly like pulled pork. Cooking jackfruit to a meat-like texture only takes five to 15 minutes, which makes it a great alternative not just if you're vegan but also if you have limited time.

After mashing the fruit until it shreds, it is simple to mix it with barbecue sauce. The recipe calls for it to be spread on a sheet pan and baked until the sauce reaches the caramelization expected from traditional barbecue. The end result is a consistency in both the fruit and sauce that closely mimics pulled pork cooked on the barbecue for hours.

Guy Fieri's recipe for canned jackfruit barbecue empanadas elevates the pulled pork substitute to the next level. The crispy empanada shells that house the barbecue filling give another layer of texture and taste to this barbecue staple. Using premade empanada discs, the whole dish takes about 45 minutes to make.

If you've never tried it before, it might be hard to wrap your head around how this works. Fruit and meat are very different, right? Fresh jackfruit is often compared to fruits like mango and apple in terms of taste, so swapping that for pork sounds like a stretch. The key here is using canned jackfruit. When canned, jackfruit's flavor profile is completely different from fresh. Canned jackfruit is usually green and unripe. It's packed in brine, and the resulting product is salty and meaty in both flavor and texture. Cooking and using appropriate seasoning takes it to that next level, where it can become a good stand-in for meat. And this isn't one of those cases where a vegan dish pretends to be something else and you have to force yourself to see the similarities. This is simply jackfruit standing on its own.

Fieri's approach treats the jackfruit honestly and uses it in the best way. It takes advantage of the canned fruit's natural texture and muted flavor, allowing it to absorb a lot from the sauce and aromatics. The result is a rich and complex dish reminiscent of pulled pork, but with much less work, and it is well worth trying if you've never had it before.