Unless you live in Florida or a huge city, a good Cuban sandwich can be really hard to find! I love Cuban sandwiches, so I wanted to figure out a way I could replicate the idea at home. Normally when I cook a pork shoulder, I always smoke it. But if you’re familiar with smoking pork, it’s an all day process. You can’t come home from work and smoke a pork shoulder. Hence my idea to do this mojo pork in a Crockpot!
The only part of this sandwich that is made in your slow cooker is the mojo flavored pork shoulder. And let me tell you, it’s so good you can totally just eat it with rice as a main dish on it’s own. You don’t even need to make a sandwich out of it. It only takes about 15 minutes of prep work starting with adding all the mojo marinade ingredients in the bottom of your Crockpot. I also just want to take a quick moment here to discuss garlic. The already minced garlic you purchase in a jar floating in oil – it’s trash. Throw it away, stop being lazy, and buy a garlic press and fresh garlic. It makes a huge difference in flavor! *steps off soapbox*
Then you’ll want to sear the outside of the pork shoulder in a large dutch oven. This just gives the exterior a bit of a crispy edge that the Crockpot won’t give you. Finally, put the shoulder in all that delicious marinade and turn that baby on low while you go to work!
After it’s done, it should look like this:
If you just wanted to serve the pork over rice, I would use a slurry – half cornstarch, half water – to thicken up the sauce the pork is sitting in. But since I put this meat on a sandwich, it didn’t need extra sauce. It’s super flavorful on it’s own.
Let’s talk about the other components of a good Cuban sandwich. 1 – the bread! I had all kinds of struggle finding the right bread for this. No one sells bread for Cubans in Raleigh! I did finally find a restaurant that sells Cubans and also happened to be selling their Sobao bread. If you’re local, the restaurant is Pressed by Spanglish. Or their Durham location is just named Spanglish. This bread is like a broad french loaf but way softer.
If you can’t find this type of bread, good substitutions would be a foccacia loaf or a french baguette. You want it to be on the softer side so that you’re not fighting with it when you griddle the outside of the bread – which is mandatory!
Two other components to a Cuban sandwich are the mustard and pickles. Personally, I’m not a fan of regular yellow table mustard. So I usually mix dijon mustard and mayo together to put on this sandwich. (as seen below) Use whatever you want, as long as you have dill pickles on the sandwich and some form of mustard! Lusty Monk Mustard based out of Candler, NC has a “Burn in Hell” chipotle mustard for all my other spicy food lovers out there! It goes great on this sandwich.
I also prefer using Board’s Head meats and cheeses whenever I use deli meat. They have a high quality product and I love their maple glazed ham and baby swiss cheese for this Cuban Sandwich.
Once you’ve got the sandwich assembled, you griddle the outside with butter, just like you would a grilled cheese. Honestly this is kind of difficult because the sandwich wants to un-assemble when you flip it in the frying pan. I’ve heard of some people using the bottom of a cast iron pan to griddle the top, but cast iron is heavy! If you have a panini maker, that would be ideal. But I hate excess kitchen appliances that aren’t really necessary. Sooo it’s totally do-able in a regular pan. Just exercise caution!
This sandwich is just so delicious and messy! The garlic and spice flavored pork combined with mustard and pickles plus all that melty cheese! The thing that takes it over the top is the crispy buttery outside. YUM.
Crockpot Cuban Sandwiches
Ingredients
For the Mojo Pork:
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 4 lb pork shoulder
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 bay leaves
For the Cuban Sandwich:
- 1 lb deli ham, such as Boar's Head Maple Glazed
- 1/2 lb baby swiss cheese
- 1/2 cup Duke's Mayo
- 1/4 cup Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard
- 1 cup dill pickle chips
- 4 loaves sobao bread, or substitute with french bread or foccacia
- 4 tbsp butter, softened
Instructions
- In a large pot or dutch oven, add the canola oil on medium high heat. Season the pork with salt and pepper, then sear all sides of the pork shoulder in the pot.
- to the slow cooker, add the orange juice, lime juice, cumin, oregano, red pepper flakes, garlic and bay leaves. Stir then place the seared pork shoulder on top of the marinade. Use a spoon to scoop some of the marinade on top of the pork.
- Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 6.
- Assemble the sandwich with mayo and mustard, then a generous helping of the mojo pork. Add deli ham, swiss, and pickles. Butter both outer sides of the sandwich with the softened butter and griddle the sandwich in a frying pan over medium-low heat. Press down the top of the bread while frying. Serve hot.
