Pork Roast French Dip Sandwiches

Are you looking for a simple meal that tastes fantastic? My Pork French Dip Sandwiches are so easy to throw together in the morning and will be waiting in your slow cooker when you get home.

Confession. These pork tenderloins were not originally intended on my part to be French Dip Sandwiches…

Truth be told, I had every intention of making them BBQ Ranch Pulled Pork Sandwiches but they definitely had a higher calling.

It all started when I decided to switch up my usual “recipe” of dump them in the crock pot and squirt them with ketchup and toss on some brown sugar and call it a day.

I have been seeing a lot of recipes lately that reminded me of Basilmomma’s Dr. Pepper Pork and Deep South Dish’s Slow Cooker Coke Pulled Pork… both which share a common ingredient… pop, soda, cola. I have heard of folks using Root Beer and 7 UP before and raving. And, like any good former Weight Watchers attendee, I –of course– had tried the famous Cola Chicken before.

But here is the thing, I didn’t have any soda in the house… except… wait for it… Big Red.

And I hadn’t heard of anyone using that 😉

So there I stood in the kitchen with a dilemma on my hands.

1. Would Big Red even “work”?  I was fairly confident it would work in theory. Pop is used all the time to tenderize meat. But, I worried it would give a hint of cream soda to the meat and I wasn’t sure about it.

2. But, would it dye my meat “red” or “pink” ? All I could think of was that scene in Bridget Jones’ Dairy where she uses dental floss in a recipe and it dyes her entire dish blue.

3. Would Puddie catch me? If Mike knew that I used Big Red in a recipe, I knew he would be really leery to try it. Not to mention that he would give me a REALLY hard time about it.

4. Would I have to toss it out? Tenderloin is my favorite cut of pork and it weighed heavily on me that I might ruin a really nice piece of meat.

But, it was time to leave for church and something had to happen so I took a deep breath and dumped it on in. And wouldn’t you know Puddie asked me on the way to church “how did you fix that pork anyhow?”

Strike one.

I was getting nervous on the way home… I convinced myself it was going to be pink… and Puddie kept saying “It better not taste like strawberries”.

As I walked in the door and tiptoed to the crock pot my hope started to rise with each step, the smell was amazing…

I peeked into the pot and the juices were the color of any good broth. Score!

But the taste… how did it taste? Holy Yumminess Batman! I kid you not, it was THE best pork roast I have ever made.

Tender. Flavorful. Ah-mazing.

So good that I couldn’t bring myself to drain off the juices and add BBQ Sauce.

Instead, we shredded it and put it on buns and dipped it in the Au jus  (juices) French Dip style! It was so good that we are making it as the star of our upcoming lunch get-together for Miss Add’s Birthday.

So how about you? Do you dare to use Big Red? Trust me. Totally worth it. The best part? It has 3 ingredients. So simple to have on hand.