The best of Southern cooking and Italian flavors come together in these pulled pork sandwiches. In order to create substantial sandwiches that are hearty enough for your biggest diners, tender pork is blended with onions, peppers, mushrooms, and pesto sauce.
| Prep Time: | 1 hr |
| Cook Time: | 3 hrs 27 mins |
| Total Time: | 4 hrs 27 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 4 sandwiches |
Ingredients
- ¼ cup kosher salt
- ¼ cup freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ cup Italian seasoning
- 2 tablespoons dried rosemary
- 2 tablespoons granulated garlic
- 2 tablespoons granulated onion
- 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
- 1 tablespoon lemon pepper
- 1 (4 pound) pork shoulder roast
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 2 cups dry white wine
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 goat horn peppers, or other hot green chiles, sliced
- 1 red bell pepper, sliced
- 1 onion, sliced
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- ¼ cup garlic basil spread (see footnote for recipe link)
- ¼ cup Marsala wine
- 1 cup prepared pesto sauce
- 4 Italian-style hoagie buns, split lengthwise
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes, divided
- ½ cup chopped fresh basil, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
- Combine kosher salt, 1/4 cup black pepper, 1/4 cup Italian seasoning, rosemary, granulated garlic, granulated onion, 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes, and lemon pepper together in a bowl.
- Place pork shoulder in a large roasting pan. Rub with lemon juice, 1 tablespoon olive oil, red wine vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce on all sides and between any crevices. Sprinkle with kosher salt mixture and rub over all sides. Pour white wine, chicken stock, and 4 crushed garlic cloves into the bottom of the roasting pan.
- Cover pan tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil and roast pork in the preheated oven until tender and a thermometer inserted reaches 200 degrees F (95 degrees C), 3 to 4 hours. Transfer pork to a cutting board and allow to cool slightly before pulling. Using two forks, shred the pork shoulder into bite-size pieces. Transfer meat to a large bowl and toss with some of the pan juices to keep it moist.
- Increase oven temperature to 500 degrees F (260 degrees C).
- Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat; cook and stir goat horn peppers, red bell pepper, onion, 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper in the hot oil until onion softens and begins to turn golden, about 12 minutes.
- Stir in mushrooms, garlic basil spread, and Marsala wine and cook until wine has reduced and mushrooms have softened, about 5 minutes. Mix pulled pork and pesto sauce into vegetables and heat through, about 10 minutes. Spoon pork mixture into hoagie buns and top each with 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese.
- Place sandwiches onto a baking sheet and bake in the hot oven until cheese is melted and bread is toasted, about 5 minutes. Top with cherry tomatoes and basil.
- Here’s the recipe for Garlic Basil Spread.
- The nutrition data for this recipe includes the full amount of the pork rub ingredients. The actual amount of sodium consumed will vary.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 885 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 53 g |
| Cholesterol | 118 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 7 g |
| Protein | 44 g |
| Saturated Fat | 16 g |
| Sodium | 4084 mg |
| Sugars | 8 g |
| Fat | 50 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This is one of our favorites.
I simplified this quite a bit but was really good. Cooked chopped mushrooms and added leftover pork roast (cut in small pieces), onions I had also cooked in the slow cooker with the roast, halved cherry tomatoes, a bit of bbq sauce, pepper and Italian seasoning. Spread hot mixture on a sub bun, topped with mozzarella and popped under broiler until cheese was melted.
This tastes better than my grandmother’s porketta. We followed the recipe exactly and WOW… We have made this several times and are amazed at how much my family loves it. Thanx for this recipe.
I used 1/2 salt and pepper. It’s still too salty and too many spices that overpowered the pork. Spices did not mix too well together.
This was a very good recipe except for the large amount of salt and pepper it calls for. I would probably half both of them. I didn’t half them at first. Instead, I make it as the recipe stated. But when I saw how much the spice mixture made I opted not to put it all on the roast. Also, I didn’t have any wine so I just put extra chicken stock in the bottom of the pan. I don’t think it needed that much liquid either. It didn’t seem to serve any purpose. After shredding the pork I put it in the liquid which was very peppery and salty. Then I took the pork out and put it in the onion/pesto mixture without the Marsala wine. The sandwiches tasted really good but were still quite salty.
Lots of steps and ingredients, but SOOO worth it. I followed the recipe to a T, except I didn’t have granulated onion and garlic, so I used onion and garlic powder. It was delicious and extremely flavorful. It was a tad too spicy for my husband so next time I might use a little less red pepper flakes, but I loved it as is. Will definitely be making this again!!! Thanks for the great recipe.
I absolutely loved this recipe! I was cooking some pork (a huge amount) for another recipe and pulled some of it off to do this one. This one took a lot more steps than the other one, but oh boy was it worth it! I made half of this recipe as written with a couple of minor exceptions–had no lemon pepper, so just used a little zest and more pepper, no granulated onion so used fresh, chicken stock was from carcass of Roast Sticky Chicken, no goat horn peppers, so used red jalapenos. This was so very good! And it gave me a chance to use the beforehand unknown Garlic Basil Spread. Yum! I’ll be doing this one again for sure!