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Sheet pan pulled pork nachos with nacho cheese sauce, pico de gallo, sour cream, and pickled jalapeños

Pulled Pork Nachos, Smoked for a Tailgate

A bone in pork butt with a crosshatched fat cap and sweet BBQ rub, smoked until the bark sets, then wrapped and finished hot until probe tender. Shredded over tortilla chips with warm nacho cheese sauce, fresh pico de gallo, sour cream and pickled peppers.
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Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 8 hours
Rest Time 30 minutes
Total Time 9 hours
Servings: 12 servings
Course: Appetizer, Main Course, Snack
Cuisine: American, BBQ, Mexican-American
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

Pulled Pork
  • 8 lbs bone-in pork butt or pork shoulder About 8 lbs. Boneless works too.
  • Your favorite sweet BBQ rub Enough to coat the whole shoulder generously.
Pico de Gallo
  • 2 Roma tomatoes diced
  • 1/4 white onion finely diced
  • 2 jalapeños finely diced
  • 1 bunch cilantro chopped
  • 2 limes juiced
  • Salt to taste
Nachos
  • Tortilla chips Store bought is what I used.
  • Nacho cheese sauce Store bought, warmed before you use it.
  • Sour cream For dolloping over the top.
  • Pickled jalapeños or serrano peppers The last thing on.

Equipment

  • Smoker An oven works at the same temperatures.
  • Foil Tray For the wrap.
  • Heavy-Duty Aluminum Foil
  • Instant read thermometer or probe Probe tender matters more than the number.
  • Sheet Pan For building the nachos.
  • Sharp knife For scoring the fat cap and dicing the pico.

Method
 

Prepare and Smoke the Pork
  1. Score the fat cap in a crosshatch pattern. Season the entire pork shoulder generously with your favorite sweet BBQ rub.
  2. Place the pork in your smoker at 250°F. Smoke until the bark has developed and the color is where you want it.
  3. Transfer the pork to a foil tray and cover tightly with foil. Increase the smoker temperature to 350°F and continue cooking until the pork is probe tender and reaches about 203°F internal temperature.
  4. Remove the pork from the smoker and let it rest for at least 30 minutes before shredding. Once rested, shred the pork, removing the bone and any large pieces of excess fat.
Make the Pico de Gallo
  1. While the pork is cooking, combine the diced tomatoes, onion, jalapeños, cilantro and lime juice. Season with salt to taste, mix everything together and refrigerate until you are ready to build the nachos.
Build the Nachos
  1. Spread a generous layer of tortilla chips onto a baking sheet. Load them up with plenty of pulled pork, followed by warm nacho cheese sauce, then the fresh pico de gallo. The cheese sauce goes on before the pico so the chips do not go soggy.
  2. Add dollops of sour cream throughout the nachos and finish with pickled jalapeños or sliced serranos.
  3. Serve right away. Assembled nachos do not hold.

Notes

Smoke it overnight: This is a long cook. Start it before bed, let it run low, and you wake up most of the way there. If the nachos have to be somewhere at a set time, this takes the guesswork out.
Oven method: Same temperatures start to finish. Same wrap, same foil tray, same probe tender finish. You lose the smoke and keep everything else.
Why wrap and then raise the heat: Everything the smoke does happens before the wrap. Once sealed in the tray, the meat cannot dry out and the bark cannot burn, so the higher temperature just gets you there faster.
Store bought is fine: The chips and the nacho cheese sauce are both store bought here. The pork is doing the work.
Timing: Prep and cook times are estimates. Neither the memo nor the source recipe specified durations. Go by bark set and color for the first phase, and by probe tender for the second, not by the clock.

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