Cafe Rio Pork Barbacoa

Recipe Category
Main dish
Preparation time
120 minutes
Cooking time
800 minutes
Difficulty
Medium
Recipe instruction

5-6 lb. pork roast

21 oz. Dr. Pepper (or Coke or Pepsi, do NOT use diet soda)
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
7 oz. can chipotle chilies in adobo sauce
6 oz. red taco sauce (I used mild)
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Place roast in crock-pot, cover half-way with water and cook on low for 8 hours (High 3 hrs).  After 8 hours, drain pork. Mix remaining ingredients until sugar dissolves.  I didn’t keep the actual chilies, I dumped the can into a bowl and added enough Dr. Pepper to get all the sauce off of the chilies, then I tossed them.  I also rinsed out the can with Dr. Pepper for more adobo goodness.  My version had a fairly good kick to it, but if you LOVE hotness, then blend everything + 2 or 3 chilies in the blender.  (Also, the adobo sauce tends to stain plastic, using a glass or metal mixing bowl will make your clean-up of adobo sauce considerably less frustrating).

Add Dr. Pepper mixture to the roast and cook on low an additional 4 hours.

Take out roast and shred, add back into sauce and cook for 1-2 more hours.  At this point the meat was so tender it practically shredded itself.