Carolina Pulled “Pork” Sandwich
( out of 5, with 66 votes)
Loading ...Hey! Are you vegetarian/vegan/avoiding meat for some reason?
Have you heard about Jackfruit?
No?
Duuuude. I’m so about to rock your world.
There’s this restaurant in LA called Pure Luck. It happens to be owned by a friend of a friend of mine, but it’s also just an awesome vegan place with a great menu. Sadly, they are going to be closing soon. Happily, they introduced me to the magical world that is the Jackfruit. It’s this crazy Asian fruit that looks like this:
But if you prepare it properly (and don’t worry, it’s available in cans, which are much less intimidating), it can look like this:
Yeah – that’s not pork. It’s…fruit. I know, I know – I can see how it might be hard to believe that fruit could look like, much less taste like, pork. But trust me when I tell you that not only does it look like it, but it really does pass quite well for a fall-off-the-bone, melt-in-your-mouth, pulled pork.
Sadly, I haven’t found a great online resource to buy it – if you google “Jackfruit in brine” you can find a couple of places that sell it, but I would recommend just looking at your local asian market (if you’re in the Los Angeles area, 99 Ranch has it) and making sure you buy the kind that comes in brine, not syrup.
If you can manage to get your hands on some, it’s really fun to experiment with. Pure Luck, the restaurant I mentioned above, uses it for pulled pork and for Mexican carnitas (I’ll definitely get around to posting a carnitas recipe sometime!) and it’s excellent in both dishes.
And now I will stop going on about it and get to the recipe already! Crack open your can of jackfruit and rinse it really well (if you get the kind that’s in brine, it will have a slight vinegary taste which you want to rinse off as much as possible), and you’ll have something that looks like this:
What? That doesn’t look exactly like pulled pork to you? Huh. Well…we’ll get there. Take each chunk and cut off the center piece, like so:
You should be left with just the stringy bits, which we’re going to coat in our nice dry rub. This is just a mixture of various spices that you can combine and then pour all over your jackfruit. Heat it all in a medium pot over medium heat until everything is nice and toasty – maybe about five minutes.
While the spices are toasting, mix together the wet part of your seasoning, which is just a blend of various standard ingredients like maple syrup, tomato paste, and spices. You can also add tamarind paste (which, if you made my baked beans from yesterday, you already have out) to make this whole thing super awesome. Pour your mix over the toasted jackfruit and let it all simmer for maybe 30 minutes, up to an hour or so. While that is simmering you can throw some chopped onion in a skillet over medium low and let it caramelize until it’s a nice dark brown. Again, this recipe goes very well with yesterday’s baked beans – you can prepare the onions for both in the same skillet and then just roughly divide them in half when you’re done.
Once your “pork” has simmered for a while, use a fork to sort of rip apart the jackfruit pieces into stringy bits and spread this mixture out on a cookie sheet and roast it at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. You don’t have to do this step, it’s delicious straight out of the pot, but it makes it a little less soft and a little more firm/chewy.
Then just load up some sandwich bread or a roll (I used ciabatta bread, but honestly that was a little too much bread – I’d recommend just regular sandwich slices. If you use gluten free bread the whole recipe is gluten free) and go to town!
As written, this recipe is fairly spicy – if you want it to have a little less of a kick, cut back on the cayenne and red chili flakes.
So how fun is that? I love how much it looks like pulled pork. The jackfruit itself has a pretty neutral flavor so as long as you season it with some nice strong spices, it just kind of picks up that flavor.
Have any of you heard of or had Jackfruit before? Any other ways to use it I should try?
Vegan, Gluten free if you use GF bread, Low Fat, Refined Sugar Free, Soy Free Ingredients: Directions:
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[...] Pulled Pork Imposter So apparently there’s a crazy Asian fruit out there that’s having a serious identity crisis. It’s called jackfruit. And it can act (almost) like a meat replacement. It’s mysterious and magical and if you make something with it, let us know! Via Clean Green Simple [...]
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[...] I had passed by them in the farmer’s market, not knowing what that prickly thing was. Never thought twice about it. Until I saw this recipe by Jessica @ Clean Green Simple: Carolina Pulled “Pork” BBQ Sandwich. [...]
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[...] Jessica @ Clean Green Simple – Carolina Pulled “Pork” Sandwich [...]
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[...] Pulled Pork Imposter So apparently there’s a crazy Asian fruit out there that’s having a serious identity crisis. It’s called jackfruit. And it can act (almost) like a meat replacement. It’s mysterious and magical and if you make something with it, let us know! Via Clean Green Simple [...]
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[...] eventually settled on a recipe for Carolina BBQ-inspired pulled “pork” from [...]
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[...] The site is: cleangreensimple.com [...]
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[...] can find the recipe I used on the blog, Clean Green Simple. She offers a ton of insight into the recipe and some awesome photographs so you know exactly what [...]
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[...] found this recipe on yet another food blog, Clean Green Simple, which describes how its author, Jessica, strives to live her life. I’ve found several [...]
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[...] http://cleangreensimple.com/2011/05/carolina-pulled-pork-sandwich/ Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeOne blogger likes this. This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Food on September 6, 2012 by citizenkate420. [...]
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[...] http://cleangreensimple.com/2011/05/carolina-pulled-pork-sandwich/ Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. [...]
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[...] can find the recipe I used on the blog, Clean Green Simple. She offers a ton of insight into the recipe and some awesome photographs so you know exactly what [...]
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[...] are recipes of pulled pork jackfruit sandwiches here and there but once you read through a few recipes you kind of get an idea of what ingredients you need. [...]
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[...] – Pulled Pork Jackfruit – cannelini beans – steamed broccoli with sesame seeds – brown rice – Veganomicon Barbeque Sauce – [...]
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[...] is based on the recipe here. It’s a great recipe and as with all great recipes you end up making them your own- this is [...]
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[...] are two recipes from Clean Green Simple, Carolina Pulled “Pork” Sandwich, and Jessica’s version of the Jackfruit [...]
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[...] a while I settled on this “Carolina Pulled ‘Pork’ Sandwich” recipe – I wasn’t going to make sandwiches, but tacos, but the [...]
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[...] found this recipe on yet another food blog, Clean Green Simple, which describes how its author, Jessica, strives to live her life. I’ve found several [...]
This sounds delicious, gonna try it with real pork!
Amazing my Daughters and I love this recipe … to make it easier .. I just use Bar B Q sauce any name brand will do !
Wow! Thank you for posting this recipe. We made it yesterday, in the crock pot (did a double recipe, but did not double the cayenne). I had jackfruit canned in water. Then let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. Tonight, We spread it on a silpat silicone liner and heated it at 400, as directed, but for closer to 20 minutes because it was cold. It colored the silpat a little. That may come off, but, if not, it was so worth it! This was, as others have said, amazing. Thank you so much.
Fabulous!!! Thank you for sharing! I missed pulled pork after transitioning to a plant based diet. Not anymore! These are great! Also seasoned them for Cuban pulled pork tacos and have also added the baked fruit to chili. Very versatile!
I usually don’t leave comments so that should tell you just how good this is! Thank-you SO much for posting. We are a family of vegetarians always looking for new and interesting recipes. I think I have made this 4 times already since stumbling across it. Delicious and cruelty-free, my favorite kind of meal!
Looking for something that tastes like pork, bacon, sausage, ham, etc. This sounds great for shredded pork dishes…. any suggestions for pork chops, ham, smoked sausage,bacon, etc.?
hello,
dope recipe! how long does the prepared mixture last in the fridge? can I safely reheat it?
thanks!
You can cook it in coconut milk with garlic, onions and eat with rice.
I found young jack fruit in water in the can at an Asian grocery store in broomfield. Giving this recipe a shot but plan to use a slow cooker to blend flavors before I bake it!
My boyfriend and I had our first date at Pure Luck and both ordered the vegetarian pulled pork sandwich four years ago (: it was messy and delicious and we wanted to revisit it this week to recreate our first date and found out it’s now a different restaurant! I looked everywhere but no other restaurants in LA make it, so thankfully I found your blog post and we made it today. It is delicious! Thank you so much for sharing. We really appreciate it!!
This recipe is AMAZING! I made it for my meat eater boyfriend, and he didn’t even know it wasn’t meat until I told him. Thank you so much for this golden nugget!
Jack fruit makes great crab cakes or tuna salad also
Thanks for the recipe! It’s spicier than I anticipated yet extremely delicious!
This is AMAZING. I make it all the time. It’s got the real rich, satisfying hardiness that most people expect from meat, only without the drowsiness, toxins, or cholesterol. TOTALLY worth finding jackfruit in brine (which is cheap, to boot).
10/10.
This recipe is fantastic. I made a different BBQ sauce, but it’s the realization that jackfruit (an unprocessed fruit) can be used as a meat substitute that matters. It could easily fool a person into thinking its pork.
I thougt tsp meant tablespoon…
Leftovers anyone?
The best vegan/vegetarian sausage I’ve ever had is made by this company called “field roast”. Absolutely delicious with great texture…. look it up.
Found fresh jackfruit in rural Illinois. It is AWESOME! . . . BUUUT. . . Anyone trying it should be well aware that the seeds are EXTREMELY STICKY!!!! We didn’t know, and it took hours to clean the knife, board, our hands and mouths completely free of the residue. It seems to be a coating just around the seeds, not on the flesh itself, which is nothing short of absolutely delicious!!! Very well worth it!!! If we ever find it fresh again we’ll use gloves, a cheap knife, and probably some wax paper on the cutting board next time. Avoiding the seeds will avoid stickiness around the mouth. In Alaska, we’ve found it at Asian markets, canned in brine. Got to this site by doing a search for what to do with canned jackfruit. Had no idea, having tasted the creamy tropical fruitiness of it, that it could ever substitute for meat! Very excited to try it this way! I wonder if my meatlover hubby will know…
I tried this and another recipe I found tonight and I have to say this one takes the cake. The other didn’t have spices and only had BBQ sauce, so it was simple and ok but this was super tasty, it had so much depth to it! I wasn’t a huge fan of baking it because it made it dry but adding some sauce to it made it better. I will be making this more often as I’m trying to eat less meat and this is a good way of tricking myself
-Thank you for sharing!
Awesome recipe. I added a bit of liquid smoke that brought it up a notch. thanks.
-j
Interesting. Had to do a double-take, that jackfruit resembled a durian. By “neutral flavor” I’m assuming it tastes nothing like a durian. The recipe looks awesome. I have a hunch where I can get my hands on some canned jackfruit, so I might be giving this a try.