Who doesn’t love a good fiesta? Especially when it’s celebrating our sweet friend Krystal and the impending arrival of sweet little Cookie.

Krystal is the blogger behind Mrs. Regueiro’s Plate. She and I share a love for massive prop rooms and an adoration for California-based food photographer-stylists couples 🙂

To celebrate, a few of Krystal’s friends were asked to prepare a dish inspired by her and her husband’s backgrounds, Filipino and Cuban (how much more exotic does that sound compared to “Texan” and “Georgian”). I settled on a dish using Cuban-style pulled pork and ultimately decided on sliders since they’re pretty much the perfect party food.

Cuban pulled pork is seasoned liberally with a marinade of garlic, sour oranges, lime, and minced onion. The acidity creates a melt-in-your-mouth tender roast that’s excellent served slider-style on dinner rolls with thinly sliced red onions and melty swiss cheese. And you’ll have quite a bit of pulled pork leftover for other goodies like quesadillas, tacos, or just more sliders!

Congratulations to Krystal and Eric! Thanks to Joelen for hosting and pulling together what promises to be a delicious celebration and roundup. And a special thanks to Tina for serving as this southeast Texan’s Cuban food technical support and sounding board. First round of margaritas is on me 🙂

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Cuban-Style Pulled Pork Sliders

Party-friendly Cuban-style pulled pork sliders made with your slow cooker/crockpot.

Ingredients

• For the pulled pork:
• 5 lbs pork shoulder roast
• 1 onion, peeled and quartered
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 2 limes, juiced (1/4 cup) and zested
• 1-2 oranges, juiced (1/2 cup) and zested
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp oregano
• Salt
• Pepper
• For the sliders:
• 1/2 recipe slider rolls (or 12 of your favorite dinner rolls)
• Swiss cheese slices
• 1 lime, quartered
• Thinly sliced red onions
• Avocado slices
• Mustard

Instructions

1. Using a paring knife, pierce the roast all over.
2. Place the pork roast in a large ziptop bag.
3. In a food processor or blender, add the onion, garlic, lime juice and zest, orange juice and zest, oil, oregano, and a generous pinch of salt and fresh ground black pepper.
4. Process until mostly smooth.
5. Pour into the ziptop bag, press the excess air out of the bag and seal, massaging the marinade onto the roast.
6. Refrigerate overnight.
7. Pour the contents of the ziptop bag into your crockpot, rotating the roast so that the fat cap is on top, and cook 8-10 hours on low.
8. Remove the roast from the crockpot and shred, discarding the fat and bones. Reserve ~3 cups of pulled pork for the sliders and store leftovers tightly covered in the fridge (I pour some of the cooking liquid over the shredded meat before storing to keep it from drying out).
9. Toss the pulled pork with a couple tablespoons of cooking liquid and the juice from the quartered lime.
10. Preheat the oven to 350.
11. Cut rolls in half, spread mustard, and then top with a generous mound of pulled pork, a slice of swiss cheese torn to fit the slider, and sliced red onions.
12. Place the top of the rolls onto the sandwiches and transfer to a baking pan.
13. Cover with foil and bake 10 minutes.
14. Remove the foil and bake another 2, until the cheese has melted nicely.
15. Serve warm with additional red onion and sliced avocado.

Notes

Yields: 12 sliders

Pulled pork adapted from My Life as a Mrs.

Estimated time: 12 hours