Single Guy’s Kitchen

I’m in the process of cleaning out my refrigerator and freezer to prepare for a move. This means less grocery shopping and more unique food combinations. I did find one good thing while cleaning out, a 5lb boston butt that I had purchased in March. I couldn’t imagine a better opportunity to the try the so-called Bachelor’s Roast.

There are a few variations on the bachelor’s roast, but most variations I saw called for a roast (pork or beef), a slow cooker, coca-cola, and ketchup. The preparation is simple and it creates a pot full of meat that can be used any number of ways, from sandwiches to soups to just by itself. Probably not the tastiest thing in the world, but definitely versatile and simple to prepare. Most bachelors would be happy with that. Besides, with the right BBQ sauce, any meat can taste good.

My ingredients were a 20 oz bottle of Coca-Cola, about 2/3 a bottle of Vidalia onion BBQ sauce, and the last of a ketchup bottle. There’s no rhyme or reason to this. Most of the recipes call for a bottle of coke and a bottle of ketchup. Some call for the coke and a bottle of BBQ sauce. Since I’m trying to use things up, I figured I would try a little of each. Don’t buy anything special for this roast.  Just use what you have.  Place your roast in your slow cooker, pour your BBQ sauce/ketchup over it, and then add your coke.

I set the slow cooker on low and let this go for about 8hrs. It will be incredibly tender by the time you are finished. After 8hrs I went to pull mine out by the bone and the bone slipped right out, perfectly clean. I had to remove mine from the slow cooker in chunks! Mine was that tender.  Once you get all the meat out of the pot, set it on a large cutting board and set this aside to cool.

I tried to get all the fat and other undesirables out of the remaining juices too. The fat adds flavor but its really not healthy and when you refrigerate all of this later it will just solidify as one block if there is too much fat left in it. At this point I wasn’t that happy with the flavor of the juice either. It was fine for cooking but not very finished. I poured out most of the remaining juice, leaving about half a cup or less in the bottom of the crock pot.

I decided to create my own sauced based on spices and a cocktail of the various BBQ sauces left in my fridge. I had some hot, some sweet, some mustard based, and everything in between. I just eyeballed this completely with no real reason behind any of it. I also added black and red pepper and a little honey too. I mixed all this together in the slow cooker (which I left on low) and left this to attend to the meat.

Once your meat is cooled enough to handle, get to shredding it. This should be pretty easy. I just did it with a pair of tongs and a fork. It didn’t take more than a minute or two. With the meat pulled and shredded to your liking, add it back to the slow cooker with the sauce.

I put the lid back on and let it cook in the new sauce for maybe half an hour more on low. I used this time to fix some vegetables and whatever other side dishes I wanted to go with it. The only downside to this is the sauce takes the forefront. By doing this I lost the ability to customize the meat. It has a sauce and that’s that. That’s not necessarily a bad thing and it worked out well in my case.

I thought it turned out very well. There are a lot of variations you can do with this. You could just eat or store it right after shredding. This would give you the ability to chose your own sauce based on how you were eating the meat. I think a sauce is necessary though as this came out a little dry on its own. I wonder if marinating the roast ahead of time or putting it in a brine would have helped.

In the end, for really no effort, I have almost 5lbs of versatile meat that I can put in sandwiches, eat with beans, vegetables, or anything really. It helped me clean some old sauces out of my fridge and it gives me a good staple to eat on while I continue the cleaning out process and get ready to move. The bachelor roast is good way to take a cheap roast and spread it out into several meals, something any bachelor should appreciate. Enjoy!