Slow Cooker Pork Loin Roast Recipe

There are many wonderful things to love about a roast. Not only is it fancy enough to serve as a special occasion or Sunday meal, but it's also fairly effort-free — stick it in the oven and it pretty much cooks itself. The one pitfall with oven-roasting, however, is that if you don't time it right and leave the roast in a bit too long, it could wind up dry. That's a real shame, especially considering how delicious it will turn out if it's cooked just right.

Recipe developer Ting Dalton, though, likes to skip the oven when it comes to roasting a pork loin. Instead, she uses a slow cooker so she never has to worry about overcooking. While the time given in this recipe is five hours, she says the pork can "cook longer than 5 hours." As she explains, "The meat of this size will be tender at 5 hours, but if you need to leave for a few more hours, it will be fine." She calls this pork loin an easy family dinner, and says what she likes about it is that you can start it in the morning, then let it take care of business by itself in the slow cooker throughout the afternoon. Not only does the pork come out nice and tender, but the cooking liquid can be used as what Dalton calls "a delicious sweet and tangy sauce."

This recipe for slow cooker pork loin, unsurprisingly, calls for a pork loin as the main ingredient, and Dalton uses one that is three pounds. To season it, you'll be using a bunch of dry spices: thyme, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and white pepper. Olive oil can be used for cooking, along with a little butter, and you're also going to need the dynamic aromatic duo of onions and garlic. The cooking liquid for the slow cooker is made up of chicken broth and apple cider vinegar, sweetened with a bit of brown sugar. If you prefer, Dalton says you can use a pork shoulder in this recipe, but adds that it will need to cook for eight to 10 hours.

Mix all of the dry spices, including the pepper, with a teaspoon of salt. Drizzle the pork loin with two tablespoons of the olive oil, then sprinkle the spice mix all over the meat. Rub it in well, making sure the entire loin is covered. Heat a skillet over high, then sear the pork for a minute or two on each side, until it is evenly browned. Remove the meat from the pan and set it aside for the moment.

Pour the remaining tablespoon of oil into the pan and add the butter. When the butter is melted, go ahead and add the onions and cook them for three minutes, until they are beginning to soften up a bit. Now add the garlic and fry it along with the onions for another minute. Dalton reminds us to "make sure to mix in all the meat juices and any spices stuck to the pan." Once the aromatics are cooked, put them in the slow cooker along with the pan juices.

Rest the pork loin on that fragrant garlic/onion bed, then combine the broth, vinegar, and brown sugar, and pour this mixture over the top. Close the lid of the slow cooker and set it to cook on low heat. Leave it alone for five hours, then remove the pork from the pot. Slice the meat before serving it with the juices left in the slow cooker. Dalton says, "You can spoon over the sauce or serve it separately," and suggests accompanying the dish with potatoes and green vegetables.

If you'd like to thicken up the pan juices before re-purposing them as a sauce for your pork loin, Dalton suggests doing so with corn starch. She says to pour the juices into a saucepan and heat them on high. Mix two tablespoons of corn starch with a small amount of cold water to make a paste, then stir the paste into the pan juices. Continue heating and stirring until the sauce thickens.