Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder with Peach Sauce
Date Completed: 3/27-28/2025
Book: America's Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook
Chapter: How to Cook Meat
Overall Score: 10/12
Recommended? Wow - yes! Make this for a dinner party or any celebration. It takes a while, but it is relatively hands-off. And the peach sauce? I’d recommend that sauce even if you don’t make the pork. Check out the leftover report for an idea + sneak peek at the next recipe in the project!
Process Report:
Process Score: 2 - Quite Involved
It’s a 2-day minimum process for this one, so it requires a time commitment and some pre-planning! The steps themselves are pretty easy, though.
The day before you plan to cook the pork shoulder, you combine equal parts kosher salt and light brown sugar to rub all over the meat. It sits in the refrigerator to season for at least 3 hours. I did this the evening before, so it ended up being about 16 hours total.
The cooking is all done in the oven the next day! We originally thought about cooking this on the grill but decided it was too windy to try it. Garrett was the main chef for the pork! He got it seasoned with pepper and into the oven to begin roasting at about 11 AM the day of our dinner party.
It roasted for about 5 hours to get to 190 degrees. We used our baster for the first time with this recipe! It called for two rounds of basting throughout its time in the oven.
For the peach sauce, you start with frozen peaches (meaning this works in any season - love it!). They simmer on the stove for about 30 minutes with dry white wine, sugar, and a few sprigs of fresh thyme. The recipe calls for a quarter cup of the *pork drippings, but I think you can definitely skip this.
The recipe also called for a small amount of rice vinegar, but I used the white wine vinegar I had already instead of buying that just for this sauce.
After it thickens up on the stove, you just stir in a tablespoon of whole-grain mustard and fish out the thyme sprigs. That’s it!
*SOS: Has anyone ever successfully used a fat separator? Is this just a scam of a kitchen tool?
Taste Report:
Taste Score: 3 - Special
I served this for a dinner party with two lovely friends, and it was just perfect!
First, a moment for the peach sauce. I absolutely loved this! When I’m cooking, I’m always finding something at the end to tweak in the seasoning. Not with this sauce, though! I left it completely alone. It was such a great balance of sweet and tangy (especially given the mustard flavor)!
For me, the sauce is what makes this recipe truly special. I might try adding a few more sprigs of thyme next time to amp up that element of the flavor profile, too.
Now, for the pork shoulder. We eat a lot of pulled pork where I just throw the whole thing in a crock pot and let it cook on low for 8 hours. I might never do that again after trying this recipe. The crock pot, yes, but I am now fully bought into the idea of letting the seasoning sit with the pork overnight. The flavor of this pork was so much better! Even the interior had great flavor! Plus: look at that crust!
According to ATK, letting the pork rest for an hour is the key to preventing it from shredding when you carve it. It was news to me that some people consider “shredding” a bad outcome of their pork shoulder. I always shred - hello, pulled pork?!
Nevertheless, we went with the recipe and waited before carving. Now, I’m also a convert on slicing instead of shredding. The texture benefits were even more noticeable to me in the leftovers!
I paired the pork with some simple garlic/thyme mashed potatoes and Confetti Corn. I have a few new ideas for that confetti corn recipe to make it even better. I’m excited to try them out over the summer with some fresh (rather than frozen) corn!
Mess Report:
Mess Score: 2 - Moderate
Too many dishes to give it a 3 (Minimal) score, but honestly not bad. Garrett especially appreciated not having to clean the crock pot this time!
Plus, a close-up of the offending fat separator in question. Send help!
Leftover Report:
Leftover Score: 3 - Feast
Here’s another area where this recipe shines! I’ve been eating the chopped pork in various forms for the last several days, and it has stayed just as delicious each and every time. We also froze some slices for a dinner next week, which I love! Depending on the size of the crowd you’re feeding, you might not have quite as many leftovers as we did.
I have to give full credit to Garrett for the most exciting part of this Leftover Report.
He had the bold and fabulous idea to make homemade gnocchi to serve with the leftover peach sauce. Oh my goodness! What a treat!
I’ll say more about the gnocchi in another post because it’s actually from a different one of our cookbooks!
I honestly might be making the peach sauce again specifically to pair it with this gnocchi. They were a match made in heaven because the gnocchi was flavored with nutmeg. My oh my! More on Chef G’s gnocchi soon!
For now, I’ll leave you with a suggestion to call up some friends and have them over for dinner! Whatever is on the menu, time with friends is always a good idea!