If you’re looking to serve up a super easy Thanksgiving dinner this year, you might want to consider this Slow Cooker Pork Roast – with most of the trimmings. If you’re going to stick with the traditional turkey dinner, I completely understand. But you will still want to keep this recipe in your recipe binder. I promise it will become a family favorite and a life saver when you need a delicious slow cooker recipe.
My goal in life for the next few months is to stock my freezer and come up with more delicious slow cooker recipes. Maybe it’s the cooler weather that has me kinda ho-hum but dinner time is just not at the top of my priority list lately. It’s still super important to me to have a nutritious meal on the table for my family but I’m taking all the short cuts I can when it comes to making dinner. There’s just so many other fun things I’m occupied with right now.
My latest interest is that (and you’re going to think I’m totally crazy here) I’ve become completely fascinated by Earthships. If you’ve never heard of them before, this is how Wikipedia describes them:
An Earthship is a type of passive solar house that is made of both natural and upcycled materials such as earth-packed tires, pioneered by architect Michael Reynolds.
An Earthship addresses six principles or human needs:
- Thermal/solar heating and cooling
- solar and wind electricity
- self-contained sewage treatment
- building with natural and recycled materials
- water harvesting and long term storage
- some internal food production capability
Earthship structures are intended to be “off-the-grid-ready” homes, with minimal reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels. They are constructed to use available natural resources, especially energy from the sun and rain water.
I truly believe in leaving a smaller foot print on the earth. I’d love to live off what I’m able to produce at home – for financial reasons and I just feel it’s much healthier. I’m focused on spending less and repurposing what I already have.
So on that note, I’ve taken a great deal of interest in figuring out a way to produce food in my home over the cold winter months. Considering I live in Northern Ontario, this will be no small feat. Wish me luck!! I was able to transplant a few of my smaller tomato plants out of my garden and a squash plant that was still blooming. Otherwise I’m starting cucumber plants, beans, lettuce and green onions from seed. I started the seeds in my growing buckets a few weeks ago outside and will bring them inside in the next little while before it gets too cold.
It seems like a pretty crazy venture but hey, I upcycled most of the items I needed for the project and if I can get a few crops over the winter, I will consider it a win. I have a large window in my living room I’m hoping will provide enough sunlight, otherwise I may entertain the idea of getting a grow light.
If I haven’t lost you already, I’m pretty impressed. (and maybe you’re just a tad interested in my winter garden too? Have you ever done something like this? I’d love if you leave a comment and let me know)
As for this slow cooker pork roast, I swear it was a stroke of genius. Back when I had bushels upon bushels of apples from my apple picking adventures, I was cooking everything with apples. Since pork goes so well with apples, I decided to cook the apples with the pork in the slow cooker. The apples infuse the pork and carrots with a beautifully sweet apple flavor. You can then serve the apples compote on the side with the pork. So good.
While I’m planning on serving my slow cooker pork roast as an easy family dinner, this recipe will be added to my weekly meal plan on those super busy days when I’m looking for an easy slow cooker recipe. I had a good amount of leftover pork so I made up some sandwiches for lunch. A little honey mustard and it was delicious!!
Slow Cooker Pork Roast
Ingredients
- 1 3 lb pork loin
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- Zest of one orange about 1 tablespoon
- 5 teaspoons paprika
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground pepper
- 2 large apples peeled, cored and cut into 1” pieces
- 3 lbs carrots peeled and chopped into 1” pieces
Instructions
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Prepare the apples and carrots and add to the bottom of the slow cooker. Add ½ cup of water.
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Combine all the spices in a small bowl.
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Sprinkle the spices all over the pork loin. Transfer the pork loin to the slow cooker, laying the meat on top of the chopped apples and carrots.
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Set your slow cooker to cook on high for 4 hours or 8-10 hours on low. Cook the pork loin until it reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees F.
Recipe Notes
You can totally make this recipe in the oven as well but I would defrost the pork loin in the fridge overnight before preparing it.
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Did you make this recipe? Have a meal planning tip to share?
Tag @365daysofeasyrecipes on Instagram . I’d love to see!
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I love this beautful golden-brown crust on the top, I’m sure your pork roast is terrific!