Pork shoulder chunks are simmered in an apple cider sauce for a long time until they are completely soft and the sauce has thickened. This tastes great when served with buttered rice or spätzle.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 2 hrs 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 25 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 (3 pound) pork shoulder roast, cut into 3- or 4-inch chunks
- Kosher salt to generously season pork
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ cup fresh sage leaves, torn
- 1 (750 milliliter) bottle hard apple cider
- ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
- ½ cup creme fraiche or heavy cream
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
- Creme fraiche for garnish
- Chopped fresh chives for garnish
Instructions
- Generously salt all sides of the pork shoulder chunks. Heat oil in a heavy pot over high heat. Brown pork shoulder pieces until surface is seared and crusty, about 3 or 4 minutes per side. Transfer browned pork to a plate. Add onions to oil and reduce heat to medium and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook and stir about 2 minutes. Add torn sage leaves; cook until onions soften and begin to brown, stirring frequently. Pour cider into pot; stir to deglaze bottom. Raise heat to high and bring to a boil. Stir in cider vinegar. Reduce heat to low.
- Transfer pork shoulder pieces to cider mixture. Cover; simmer gently on low 1 hour. Remove lid and turn pieces over. Cover; simmer on low until meat is fork tender, 1 to 2 more hours. Transfer pork to a bowl with a slotted spoon.
- Raise heat to high and bring sauce to a simmer. Whisk in creme fraiche. Simmer until liquid is reduced by half and is slightly thickened, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in a pinch of cayenne. Transfer pork back to pot; reduce heat to low. Baste pork with sauce while it heats through and becomes perfectly tender, and the sauce is as thick as you want it, about 15 more minutes.
- You can substitute non-alcoholic apple cider or apple juice for the hard apple cider. But hard cider works best.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 696 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 17 g |
| Cholesterol | 177 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 36 g |
| Saturated Fat | 20 g |
| Sodium | 1671 mg |
| Sugars | 14 g |
| Fat | 47 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This was AMAZING! I served it at a dinner party and got rave reviews! I served it over brown rice. Mmmm! I used a 4 pound pork shoulder, and I doubled the sauce ingredients so there’d be plenty of “gravy” to cover the rice. The only hard apple cider I could find was Angry Orchard “Crisp Apple” hard cider. It had a bit of a strong apple cider flavor, so next time I might try it with just apple cider. After I reduced the sauce, it was still not thick enough for me so I whisked in several tablespoons of corn starch to thicken it. I also made homemade Creme Fraiche – super easy! This recipe will definitely be repeated! Thanks Chef John!
I had forgotten this lovely recipe but found my old bookmark with the link to it. I made this a few years ago and remember how delicious, filling and comforting it was. I don’t recall making any changes to it at all. It is a nice slow braise so it once everything is prepped, browned and most things are added to the pot, it is a nice lazy day dish to prepare. It doesn’t require a lot of attention but it smells so nice cooking that one is tempted to remove the lid frequently to taste the braising liquid. I do recall serving it with Chef John’s spaetzle recipe and his delicata squash recipe. I’ll be making it again next weekend even though I think recipe is even more perfect for chilly winter months. This recipe is also a wonderful dinner to serve to guests who eat pork. It is perfect in every way.
I kinda forgot about it, and it was almost falling apart tender. Hubby loved it. This is very rich, so I served it over boiled potatoes. Yum. I made it twice, once with fresh sage and then the second time I forgot to get sage, so I used dry herbes de provence, and it was great as well. This is definitely going into the rotation as pork is afordable, especially on sale, and it’s very easy to do.
Chef John delivers again! This was tasty. First time I wanted to make this I couldn’t find fresh sage at my local grocer but saw it close to Thanksgiving so took advantage of it. Could not find creme fraiche (and didn’t want to make it) so used heavy cream. My 17 yr old son said it was REALLY good!
I did not change anything about this recipe, which says a lot because most of the time, I will review a recipe and feel like I need to make changes based on the flavor profiles. It was perfect as it was, and my whole family loved it. Thank you for sharing.
Wonderful change from chicken or beef stock liquids. And so flavorful. The apple cider is still reducing as I type this – for some reason it’s taking a really long time to thicken. Regardless I had a plate and WOW!
Will definitely make again. Will use less salt next time. Wife was a big fan!
Delish is all I have to say, added in 3 peeled and quarter honeycrisp apples 30 min before serving over brown butter Spatzle with roasted cauliflower as a side and fresh homemade French bread and butter YUM! YUM!
A bottle of Stella cider is 300ml not 750. i used 2 bottles to got to 700 and that seemed like too much liquid and too sweet in retrospect. Also spent a lot of time trying to get sauce thickened after 3h or so in slow cooker which got meat to tender. More cayenne for sure. Will be trying it again to experiment.
This was a great way to use a relatively inexpensive cut of meat, make a large quantity of food, and all without a lot of fuss or cleanup. My family loved this. With the rave reviews like those this dish garnered, I will definitely put this into our rotation for hearty, Winter Friendly food.
So good, even tho I had to make three changes – hard cider only comes in 6-packs and I didn’t want the unused bottles taking up space in my fridge so I used apple cider. I couldn’t get my hands on any fresh sage so used a teaspoon of dried sage. I also think creme fraiche is overrated so I used heavy cream in the sauce and topped with a little sour cream when I plated it. The sauce was a little sweet but the pork turned out very tender. I will make again but, I will definitely get some hard cider next time and will try harder to get fresh sage. I will stick with the much less expensive heavy cream and sour cream instead of creme fraiche.
My pork was tough after a couple hours of cooking, but I did exactly what he said, and kept cooking (overnight in the oven on 200F, and it became extremely tender. Thank you for the tip! One change I made… the cider & vinegar was a bit too pungent for me and adding some dark brown sugar mellowed it. Super delicious! Will keep in my rotation.
This was DELICIOUS. I didn’t change anything at all. While I was making it, I was kind of freaking out that I wasn’t doing it right but I guess I did! My boyfriend said it was the best thing I’ve ever made 🙂 I will definitely be making this again. Perhaps with some beef next time?
It’s simple to make yet seriously flavorful and delicious!
This recipe was absolutely amazing. We have shared it with our whole family and it’s become a mouthwatering special in our house. Creme Fraiche is necessary. We have it over German Spaetzle every time.
I had no cider so I used beer instead. It was just amazing.
One of the BEST things I have ever cooked- restaurant quality. Tastes so rich- you do really need to serve over spetzale/noodles/mashed taters or rice to balance the amazing richness. I have now used the recipe with other roasts & no surprise- AMAZING. If I was in a cooking contest for a million dollar prize- I’d make this!! Try it, I did not make any changes to the recipe.
I was not a fan, there was not a lot of depth in flavor, the recipe relies too heavily on the cider to flavor the dish which overall felt pretty one- note.
Made this to use up some apple cider, plus a large pork roast we’d bought as part of a package at Costco. It turned out very good. Was really moist and the taste was good. I didn’t want to go out and purchase any more ingredients, so used yogurt instead of the creme . That turned out just OK.
The calendar said the last day of summer but the weather said hello autumn, so I looked for an appropriate recipe to comfort me into the change of the season and I found this staggeringly good braised pork dish. The pork simply falls apart into a sauce that’s a bit tart from hard apple cider but made mild with creme fraiche. I spooned it over herbed mashed potatoes with roasted cauliflower and delicata squash on the side. My family, normally a talkative bunch, barely said a word as they all but licked their plates clean. I’ll serve this up all fall and winter to family and friends because sharing is caring. Thank you, Chef John, for my new favorite way to cook pork shoulder.
My wife does not care for sage so I substituted a quarter cup of fresh rosemary. Rather than using creme fraische I used a good amount of 1% milk then simmered to half the volume and added corn starch to thicken. Definitely not as rich as using creme fraiche but we are watching fat. DEFINITELY FABULOUS regardless. Thanks chef John.