Make Slow-Cooker Pork Roast Extra Flavorful With One Spicy Addition

Popping a nice big piece of pork into the crockpot is one of the simplest ways to make a really excellent meal. The labor is almost nonexistent, and the slow stewing over the course of a day breaks down the meat into the most succulent final product. Assuming you choose one of the best cuts of pork for the slow cooker, you're setting yourself up for an amazing dinner of pulled pork sandwiches or carnitas tacos with very little time spent actually working at it. But no matter how deliciously rich the pork is coming out of the slow cooker, it still needs to be seasoned properly. Fortunately, one pantry staple is all it takes to transform a bland pot of stewed pork into something spectacular. Mixing in a few chipotle peppers in adobo sauce adds spice, smoke, and layers of intrigue.

If you've never tried them before, canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce can be found among the Mexican foods in nearly every grocery store. The star of these cans, of course, is chipotle peppers, which differ only slightly from jalapeños. Chipotles are simply fully ripe jalapeños that are dried and smoked. When you buy them in a can, however, they are packed in adobo sauce, rehydrating the chipotles and adding lots of flavor. That sauce is typically made with ingredients like onions, tomatoes, vinegar, salt, sugar, and other dried chiles, balancing out the heat with layers of sweet, salty, sour, and umami, and creating tons of depth.

The best way to use chipotle peppers in adobo with your slow-cooked pork is to turn them into a sauce. At its simplest, all you need to do is empty that can into a food processor and blend it up, but a few extras can turn it into something really spectacular. Some additional onions and garlic, spices like cumin and oregano, a touch of acidity from lime juice or apple cider vinegar, and maybe a bit of sweetener in the form of honey or agave nectar give you a beautifully balanced chipotle sauce for the pork. Another tip for cooking with chipotles is that removing the seeds can make a big difference for more spice-sensitive individuals. It takes a little work to slice all the peppers and scrape out the seeds, but toning down the heat ensures a dinner everyone can enjoy.

Once you have that sauce whipped up, all you need to do is pour it into the crockpot along with the meat and a bit of broth — and perhaps citrus, as in this slow cooker pork carnitas recipe. Some recipes suggest using this sauce to marinate the meat before cooking, but with a slow cooker, that is not necessary. Stewing the meat in sauce over a number of hours does more than any period of marination could to ensure that every bite is full of flavor.

Once you've tasted the smoky, spicy difference that a can of chipotles in adobo can make, your slow-cooker pork will never be without them — but that doesn't mean that the upgrades are done. Next up, perhaps you take a page from these braised slow cooker al pastor tacos and work a bit of pineapple into the mix.