Hawaiian Pulled Pork Lettuce Wraps

I stood at the kitchen window this morning and watched the light come up over Mount Timpanogos and thought, again, that I have lived inside this view my whole life and never once gotten tired of it. The week was a winter week, the kind where the light through the kitchen window arrives at a particular angle and the freezer hums in a different register depending on the temperature in the garage. I made notes in my prep notebook on Sunday afternoon, the way I always do: meal name, ingredient list, cost per serving, prep time, freezer instructions. Twenty-eight bags. Two hours and eleven minutes. A little slow this week, by my standards, but Brandon was helping and the conversation was good, and I have learned, slowly and against my own grain, that the conversation is sometimes the point and the time is sometimes a courtesy I extend to my husband for being willing to chop onions on a Sunday afternoon.

The recipe of the week was breakfast burrito bulk batch, which I have made some specific number of times in my life and have refined to a system that I now hand to other people in printed form. The version I made this week fed eight, cost under fifteen dollars, and required twenty-six minutes of active prep, which is within my requirements and not a coincidence. Three of the bags I pulled out this week were dated nine months ago and they were perfect, because labeling is theology in my house. I have stopped explaining the freezer-meal philosophy to people who already follow my work, and I have stopped apologizing for it to people who do not. The philosophy is simple: tomorrow is coming whether you are ready or not. You can either be ready or not. I pick ready.

Brandon called me at lunch on Tuesday for no particular reason and I knew without him saying so that he was thinking about Grace. Twenty-some years in, I can hear the silences. We have been married a long time. The arithmetic of it is the arithmetic of my whole life. There were years we missed each other in the same room, and there are years we find each other in the silences, and this is one of the latter, and I am old enough now to know that the latter is the achievement and the former was the cost.

The accountant in me keeps a private ledger of how old Grace would be. I do not consult it. It is automatic. I do not write about her every week. I do not avoid her either. She is in the kitchen the way the kitchen is in the kitchen — woven into the structure, not announcing herself, present. The photograph above the stove is the only one of her smiling, and it has watched me batch-prep more freezer meals than I can count, and I have stopped feeling strange about the parasocial relationship I have with a four-month-old who has been gone for years. She is my daughter. The photograph is what I have. I look. I keep cooking.

I'm Michelle. The freezer is full. Talk to you next week.

The breakfast burritos were the star of this week’s prep session, but pulled pork was the workhorse underneath it all — three bags went into the freezer on Sunday alongside the rest, portioned out for exactly the kind of Tuesday when Brandon calls for no particular reason and neither of us feels like cooking. Hawaiian Pulled Pork Lettuce Wraps are what I reach for when I want something that feels a little lighter, a little bright, a little like lifting your eyes up from the ledger for a minute. They freeze beautifully, they reheat in minutes, and they are the kind of thing that makes a weeknight feel like you planned for it — because you did.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 8 hrs (slow cooker) | Total Time: 8 hrs 15 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

3 lbs boneless pork shoulder (pork butt), trimmed
1 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated (or 1 teaspoon ground ginger)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
8–10 large butter lettuce or romaine leaves
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
Sriracha or sweet chili sauce, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Mix the sauce. In a bowl, whisk together the pineapple juice, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, and red pepper flakes until the sugar dissolves.
Load the slow cooker. Place the pork shoulder in the slow cooker and pour the sauce over the top. Scatter the crushed pineapple around the pork.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 7–8 hours, or on HIGH for 4–5 hours, until the pork is fall-apart tender and shreds easily with a fork.
Shred and reduce. Remove the pork and shred with two forks. Skim any excess fat from the cooking liquid, then pour 1/2 cup of the liquid back over the shredded pork and stir to combine. Discard the rest or reserve for another use.
Prep the toppings. While the pork rests, arrange the lettuce leaves on a serving platter and set out the shredded carrots, green onions, red bell pepper, and sesame seeds in small bowls.
Assemble the wraps. Spoon a generous portion of pulled pork into each lettuce cup. Top with carrots, green onion, red bell pepper, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Drizzle with sriracha or sweet chili sauce if desired.
Freezer instructions. To batch and freeze: cool the shredded pork completely, then portion into zip-lock freezer bags (about 1 cup per bag). Label with date and contents. Freeze flat for up to 3 months. Reheat from frozen in a saucepan over medium-low heat with a splash of water or pineapple juice, or microwave in 90-second intervals until heated through. Serve in fresh lettuce cups with toppings.

Nutrition (per serving)

Hawaiian Pulled Pork Lettuce Wraps — The Freezer Is Full and So Is the Week