The seriously foolproof Pork Shoulder Roast

A handful of simple ingredients and even simpler prep and cooking deliver a tender, juicy, wonderfully flavorful pork roast. Recipe below.

WHEN MAKING ROASTS IN THE OVEN, one challenge recipes invariably address (with varying degrees of success) is how to keep the meat from drying out or becoming tough—or both. Beef roasts are particularly prone to these issues, especially the cheap cuts. Not so with pork shoulder roasts. This flavorful cheap cut comes out juicy and tender with practically no fuss at all. And as a bonus, it tastes like you worked really hard to get it just so.

Actually, two roast cuts come from the pig’s shoulder. The pork shoulder we’ve cooked here and the oddly named pork butt, which comes from higher up on the shoulder, not the hindquarters (those produce hams). The pork butt—or Boston butt—gets its name from the barrels “less prized” cuts of pork were stored and shipped in around the time of the American Revolution.

Cooks Illustrated offers a detailed write up of the differences between the two cuts. In it, they say that the pork shoulder is “frequently sold with skin on.” That has not been our supermarket experience, but there is likely to be a slab of fat on the skin side. Either cut will work for this recipe. The major deciding factor will be getting a piece that’s about 4 to 5 pounds—the shoulders can sometimes run larger.

Both cuts are beautifully (alarmingly?) marbled with fat. A lot of this fat will cook off during the roasting, some of it cooking through the meat on its way to the roasting pan, imbuing it with tender moistness. But a lot of it will not. This is not a lean protein dish. Accept that. Embrace it, in fact, and enjoy a roast that fires on so many cylinders.

A version of this recipe actually recently appeared in Marion’s post on bigos, Polish hunters stew. But there, it was relegated to the Kitchen Notes. It’s so good—and so foolproof—we decided it needed a post of its own.

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Foolproof Pork Shoulder Roast

A handful of simple ingredients and even simpler prep and cooking deliver a tender, juicy, wonderfully flavorful pork roast.

Course Main Course, Meat

Servings 4 to 6, with leftovers

Ingredients

• 1 bone-in pork shoulder, 4 to 5 pounds (see Kitchen Notes)
• olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon, or other herbs (see Kitchen Notes)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 425ºF. Put roast on a rack in a rimmed baking pan, fatty side down. Rub the roast with olive oil and chopped garlic. Season generously with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with the dried herbs.
• Roast it for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325ºF and roast until the internal temperature is at least 145ºF. Figure about 30 minutes or a little longer per pound.
• When done, let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Kitchen Notes

Bone-in, boneless? If you get a pork shoulder, it will most likely be bone-in. A Boston butt could be boneless or bone-in. All are good for this recipe. The bone in the pork shoulder is oddly shaped and may make it seem like you have less meat than you actually do. But if you start carving around, you'll be surprised by how much meat there is. We usually cut leftovers into chunks and freeze them in a zippered bag if we're not going to finish the roast in a timely way.

What herbs? In this version, just a half-teaspoon of tarragon and a quarter-teaspoon of thyme provide a nice flavor. Dried sage would also work nicely on pork, as would rosemary. Use whatever you think will work with pork—or use no herbs at all. Just garlic, salt and pepper tastes really good too.