Pulled Pork Is The Burrito Filling You Might Not Have Thought About

Pulled pork is one of the most versatile leftovers around. Whether smoked, sous vide, or simmered all day, there's always more shredded deliciousness than needed, but not everyone may be excited about eating barbecue sandwiches all week. However, with just a few additional ingredients, you can transform it into melty Cuban sandwiches, tacos, nachos, pizza, or burritos.

The last option, burritos, is a great, easy, and filling way to repurpose leftovers, no matter how you prepared your tender pulled pork. If the meat was already tossed in barbecue sauce, you can go all out and roll it up with prepared sides and fresh rice. Coleslaw, baked beans, pork, and white rice in a warm tortilla make a great start. For extra flavor, substitute dirty rice for white rice, and grate some smoked cheese — maybe a nice Gouda — over it.

If you went the slow-cooker route, reheat the pork in the oven with a high-heat broil, then finish it with a squeeze of lime, a sprinkle of salt, and chopped cilantro to create crispy pork, which would pair perfectly with yellow rice, black beans, salsa, Colby cheese, and more. If you want to combine barbecue with Mexican flavors, try using your pulled pork in a birria-style burrito. Add extra cheese, skip veggies that don't handle heat well (like lettuce or fresh pico de gallo), and griddle the burrito after rolling it for a melty, crunchy option. Serve it with a side of the birria broth for dipping.

How you cook your pulled pork dictates the direction of your burritos. If you lean into traditional barbecue flavors, the meat might not pair well with Mexican influences. Not all foods are made to be fused, so consider your menu for the week before cooking your pork shoulder.

Smoking the meat doesn't necessarily mean you're locked into a barbecue-inspired burrito unless you opt to mop the pork with a bottle of store-bought sauce. Instead, try a sweet and spicy vinegar-based mop to add acidity without the excessive sweetness. If you still want to use a traditional barbecue sauce, that's cool; just hold off until the pork meets the tortilla for your burrito, because undressed pulled pork offers more options for future meals.

If you're making the pork in a slow cooker, keep the spices general (but still flavorful), and doctor the meat afterward. Salt, pepper, garlic, onion, sugar, acid, and overlapping flavors like cumin, paprika, and chili powder make great building blocks for both barbecue and Mexican dishes. The same approach should be applied to the braising liquid you add to the slow cooker. Even if it sounds unconventional — like this Coca-Cola, orange juice, and milk recipe for carnitas — a combination of acid and sugar usually results in crispy, flavorful pork. 

You can put pulled pork into a breakfast burrito, but things might get wonky if you try to do a barbecue-breakfast fusion. You could argue baked beans are traditional breakfast fare — people in the U.K. certainly do — but serve a toad in the hole burrito to your little ones at your own risk. A more typical route is mixing the pork with scrambled eggs and cheese, the easiest and fastest way to convert pulled pork into a breakfast burrito.

However, there is another option, and that's to turn the leftover pork into pork green chili and smother a traditional breakfast burrito with it. Pork green chili is often served over chilaquiles, which are essentially breakfast nachos, so the flavor profiles align well.

Pork green chili is made by simmering pork in a spicy tomatillo sauce until tender. The catch is, you've already cooked the pork, so you don't have to wait for it to cook through. All you need to do is make the sauce, add the pork to it, and simmer until the meat is heated through.