Aarti Sequeira’s Pulled Pork with Mango BBQ Sauce Is ‘Like Sunshine in Your Pot’

Food Network star Aarti Sequeira infuses run-of-the-mill pulled pork with extraordinary flavor.

Her irresistible sweet and spicy barbecue sauce gets its tang from mangos for a showstopping spin on this popular dish.

The chef’s pulled pork recipe has a tangy twist

Sequeira’s pork recipe packs some heat with some sweetness and it all starts with a tasty dry rub that features brown sugar, paprika, and kosher salt on a three-pound boneless pork shoulder.

But the real boost in the culinary personality’s dish is in her accompanying barbecue sauce with cumin seeds, fennel seeds, minced fresh ginger and onion, sliced serrano pepper, kosher salt, mango puree, lime juice, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, molasses, salt, and pepper.

Sequeira’s barbecue sauce is off-the-hook flavorful

The Aarti Party star kicks her dish off in the Food Network video, below, for this recipe, by getting started on the sauce. She sweats the minced onion, ginger, and serrano peppers in a large pot. “This is a very traditional way to start an Indian dish,” she says. “This is how I’m adding a little Indian flavor to a very familiar thing that you’ve had probably all your life: barbecue sauce.”

She uses just one serrano pepper in her dish, but tells home cooks who like their food extra hot: “Some of you, I know, are more daring than I am; you can use two if you really like it spicy.”

Cumin and fennel seeds add even more Indian aroma to the sauce, followed by the star of the accompaniment, mango puree, which she calls “sunshine in your pot.”

Sequeira says that if you aren’t able to find mango puree for the barbecue sauce, “just use some mango juice and cook it down. Whatever’s easiest for you.”

As she’s cooking, the culinary personality admits she’d never tried pulled pork until she met her husband, adding, “Now we bicker over who’s going to get it when we go to restaurants!”

While the sauce simmers for about five minutes, the pork is rubbed down with the dry spices. It’s then submerged in the sauce, simmered, and then covered and cooked for about three hours “until it’s super tender, turning it every half hour.”

The chef suggested her favorite way to serve the pork, on brioche rolls with bread and butter pickles.

Get the complete recipe, video, and reviews on Food Network’s site.

Reviewers went ga-ga for Aarti Sequeira’s pulled pork recipe

There’s pulled pork and then there’s out-of-the-ordinary pulled pork, and Aarti Sequeira’s spin on the classic dish fits the bill, according to all the five-star reviews on Food Network’s site.

“This was one of the tastiest dishes I have EVER had! My daughter cooked it so perfectly, and all of her guests raved about it!,” one home cook wrote.

Another reviewer said, “This is the second week in a row I have run out to the store to get the ingredients for a recipe from your show and I wasn’t disappointed. Easy to make and the pork was like butter in your mouth. Excellent!”