Slow Cooker Pulled Pork with Roasted Turnips and Broccoli: a set-and-forget meal for a full week

Some weeks ask you to cook once and eat well for days. This is that meal. A pork roast studded with garlic goes into the slow cooker in the morning and tends itself, so by evening you have tender, pull-apart meat with almost no effort. When you are tending your energy through midlife and moving gently toward remission, a hands-off batch meal is its own kind of self-care, because it takes one thing off your plate while filling several others.

Pork is a source of B12 and zinc, both linked to immune function and steady energy, and the roasted broccoli alongside is a source of vitamin C. The turnips and greens round out the plate. We leave out the optional red pepper flakes from the original, since peppers are a nightshade and off the AIP table. You lose nothing in comfort and keep the meal gentle on a healing gut.

There is something quietly grounding about a meal that cooks slowly while you live your day. Let it. Open the lid at the end, breathe in, and notice that dinner has been quietly taking care of itself while you were elsewhere.

Ingredients

• 2 to 4 lb pork roast, such as a small fresh ham
• 1 clove garlic, cut into slivers
• Salt
• 8 to 10 baby turnips
• 1 head broccoli cut into florets, or a small bunch of broccolini (baby broccoli)

Method

Pat the pork roast dry and make small cuts across its surface with the tip of a knife. Tuck a sliver of garlic into each cut so the flavor works its way through the meat as it cooks. Season the roast generously with salt on all sides.

Set the roast in the slow cooker, cover, and cook on low for about 6 to 8 hours, until the meat is fork-tender and pulls apart easily. Partway through, once a good amount of liquid has gathered, carefully drain off most of it. Draining the pork part-way through keeps the meat from poaching in its own juices and lets the outside firm up rather than staying wet.

When the pork is tender, lift it out and shred it with two forks. If you would like a browned, slightly crisp edge, spread the shredded pork on a sheet pan and run it under the broiler for a few minutes, watching closely.

For the vegetables, trim the baby turnips and cut the broccoli into florets. Toss them with a little fat and salt, spread them on a roasting pan, and roast in a hot oven, around 400F, until the turnips are tender and the broccoli edges are browned, roughly 20 to 30 minutes. Serve the pulled pork warm with the roasted vegetables alongside.

Instant Pot variation

To make this in an Instant Pot, stud and salt the roast the same way. Set it on a trivet or directly in the pot with about a cup of broth or water, lock the lid, set the valve to sealing, and cook on high pressure for about 60 minutes for a 2 to 4 lb roast, then allow a natural pressure release of about 15 minutes. Shred the pork, broil for crispness if you like, and roast the turnips and broccoli in the oven as above while the pork cooks. (Pressure time is an estimate and untested against the source.)

*Adapted from gutsybynature.com*

---

*Provenance: method rebuilt in ARM's own words from gutsybynature.com's Slow Cooker Pulled Pork and Roasted Vegetables. Source file: /Users/Christopher/Documents/Claude/01-Projects/ARM/aip-source-archives/gutsybynature/slow-cooker-pulled-pork-roasted-vegetables.md. Ingredient list and quantities used as factual reference. Swap/omit: the optional 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes was omitted because peppers are a nightshade and excluded on AIP. Instant Pot variation added per ARM rules for slow cooker recipes. Health framing written fresh; no specific micronutrient claims made, none needing verify against the research bank.*