Slow Cooker Savory Apricot Pork

I have a really awesome recipe for you today.  First of all, it's a slow cooker recipe, so it's not going to heat up your house during these hot summer days.  And it's a long-cooking slow cooker recipe.  It actually cooks all day.  Second, it only takes three ingredients.  That's including the big hunk o' meat.  And third, it is so good! This pork just melts in your mouth.  This is a recipe I created myself.

Slow Cooker Savory Apricot Pork

Ingredients:
5 lb. boneless pork loin roast

⅓ cup apricot preserves

1 tbsp Italian dressing mix

Directions:

Place the pork loin in a 6 qt. slow cooker.  Combine apricot preserves and Italian dressing mix in a small bowl.  Pour the apricot mixture over the top of the pork, spreading it out to cover the top and sides.  Cover slow cooker and turn to low.  Cook for about 8 hours, or until pork is browned on the sides and fork tender.

Makes 6-8 servings.

*This recipe is gluten-free, provided that the dressing mix you use is gluten-free.

Now you might be thinking that this sounds really weird.  Apricot preserves and Italian dressing mix?  How can that taste good together?  But trust me, it really works.  The apricot preserves lend just a hint of sweetness to the pork while the dressing mix provides salt and all kinds of other yummy seasonings (garlic, onion, pepper), all in a convenient pouch.  The pork comes out fall-apart tender, incredibly moist, and with a lovely brown crust all around the outside.  

I made this when we had some friends over for dinner earlier this month and they raved about it.  They really couldn't believe that it was made with only three ingredients.  Then when I told them what the ingredients were, they couldn't believe apricot preserves and Italian dressing mix could combine to form such an amazing flavor for pork.  They were blown away, and left saying that they really need to start using their slow cooker more often!

I used a boneless pork loin, not to be confused with tenderloin.  You can use this with any kind of pork, but you will need to adjust the cooking time.  Tenderloin is more lean than regular loin, and therefore will probably dry out being in there for 8 hours.  This would be good on chops too, but obviously they would need much less time as well.

I served this with a new potato dish that turned out amazing as well.  I'll post that one soon.  And I used my other (smaller) slow cooker to easily make some baby carrots.  It was a really fuss-free meal!

So when it's too hot to turn on the oven, throw these three ingredients into your slow cooker and treat your family to an amazing meal.