Gordon Ramsay’s pulled pork is bone-in shoulder rubbed with smoked paprika, demerara sugar, garlic and thyme, roasted low at 140°C until it falls apart. Pile it on white baps with his chipotle mayo and you’ve got 20 minutes of prep for a table that feeds 10.
The recipe is from his Ultimate Home Cooking cookbook, where Ramsay calls pork butt “a cut that melts down to the sweetest, tenderest pork you’ll ever taste.” In the video, he tells his daughter Megan to rub the meat on Thursday or Friday for a Sunday roast so the spices sink deeper.
That first hour goes uncovered so the sugary paprika rub caramelises into a dark, sticky bark. Foil goes on after for the remaining 4 to 5 hours, which traps steam so the inside stays juicy while the outside holds all its colour.
Gordon Ramsay’s Smoky Pulled Pork with Chipotle Mayo
Course: DinnerCuisine: American, BritishDifficulty: Easy9
servings20
minutes6
hours625
kcal380
minutesUltimate slow-roasted pulled pork from Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Home Cooking cookbook. A paprika and demerara rub goes on days before, the shoulder roasts low for 6 hours, and you pull it straight off the bone. Approximately 625 kcal per serving.
Ingredients
- For the Spice Rub:
3 tbsp hot smoked paprika
2 tbsp demerara sugar
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
4 thyme sprigs, leaves finely chopped (stalks reserved)
Drizzle of olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- For the Pork:
2 to 3 kg (4.5 to 6.5 lb) bone-in pork shoulder, rind removed
4 onions, peeled and quartered
White baps, to serve
- For the Chipotle Mayo:
300g (10.5 oz) good-quality mayonnaise
1 to 2 tbsp chipotle paste (or 2 tsp smoked paprika)
1 tsp runny honey
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
Directions
- Mix the rub: Combine the smoked paprika, demerara sugar, crushed garlic and thyme leaves in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in a drizzle of olive oil to form a paste.
- Rub the pork: Massage the paste all over the shoulder, working it into every crevice. Cover with cling film and chill for at least 2 hours, or up to 2 to 3 days for deeper flavour.
- Preheat the oven: Set it to 140°C (285°F) / Gas 1.
- Build the roasting tin: Scatter the quartered onions in a large roasting tin and lay the reserved thyme stalks on top. Place the pork fat-side up on the onion bed.
- Roast uncovered for 1 hour: This lets the paprika rub caramelise into a dark, sticky crust on the surface.
- Cover and slow-roast: Cover the tin tightly with foil and return to the oven for a further 4 to 5 hours, until the meat is completely tender and falling off the bone.
- Make the chipotle mayo: Combine the mayonnaise, chipotle paste, honey and wholegrain mustard in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
- Rest and pull: Remove the pork from the oven, cover loosely with foil and rest for up to 1 hour. Pull the meat away from the bone in chunks using two forks.
- Serve: Pile the pulled pork onto white baps with a generous spoonful of chipotle mayo alongside.
FAQs
How do you make Gordon Ramsay’s chipotle mayo?
Mix 300g of good mayonnaise with 1 to 2 tablespoons of chipotle paste, a teaspoon of honey and a tablespoon of wholegrain mustard, then season with salt and pepper. It’s the same smoky chipotle paste that gives his chilli con carne its backbone, so if you’ve made that before you already have the ingredient.
The mayo keeps in the fridge for days, so make it the night before and forget about it. If you can’t find chipotle paste, Ramsay gives a substitution in the book: swap it for 2 teaspoons of smoked paprika, which keeps the smokiness without the chilli heat.
Can you make this pulled pork in a slow cooker?
Ramsay’s version is oven-only at 140°C because that uncovered first hour builds the paprika bark you’d lose in a slow cooker. Dry heat caramelises the sugar and smoked paprika on the surface, which gives the outside its dark colour and smoky bite.
If a slow cooker is all you have, sear the rubbed shoulder hard in a hot pan first to build some crust, then cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. The meat will shred just as easily, but the bark won’t match his oven method because the steam inside works against that crust the whole time.
What does Gordon Ramsay serve with pulled pork?
In the cookbook and the video, he pairs it with two sides from the same chapter: crushed potatoes with spring onions, cornichons and Gruyère, and a raw broccoli slaw dressed with yoghurt, shallots, roasted almonds and currants. He picks the broccoli slaw because “it doesn’t wilt, couple of hours later it’s still crunchy.”
The slaw uses yoghurt rather than mayonnaise, which Ramsay says avoids “the cloying richness” when the main already has chipotle mayo. His homemade BBQ sauce works as a second condiment if you want a more American-style spread, and his dauphinoise potatoes are a richer swap for the crushed potatoes at a dinner party.
Can you rub the pork days in advance?
Yes, and Ramsay recommends it. The book says up to 24 hours, but in the video he goes further and tells Megan to start rubbing on Thursday or Friday for a Sunday cook. That gives the smoked paprika and garlic 2 to 3 days to work into the shoulder.
Wrap the rubbed meat tightly in cling film and keep it in the fridge. The salt in the rub draws moisture out, then it gets reabsorbed along with the spices, working like a dry brine. That extra time is why his pulled pork has more depth than recipes where you rub and roast the same day.
Why does Ramsay use pork butt and not pork loin?
Pork butt is the front middle section of the shoulder, full of connective tissue and fat that breaks down over 6 hours into gelatin. That gelatin is what makes the meat so tender you can pull it with a fork. Loin has almost no connective tissue, so it dries out long before this recipe finishes.
In the video, Ramsay points out the shoulder blade and knuckle inside the joint and says “the slower you cook it the more juicier it is” because that collagen needs low, steady heat to convert. Ask your butcher for bone-in pork shoulder with the rind removed, which is the UK name for what Ramsay calls pork butt in the book.
