Fork-tender pork shoulder with mustard - Senfbraten is classic German comfort food at its best. By cutting the roast into smaller pieces and letting the Instant Pot do the heavy lifting, you get the deep, long-simmered flavors of an all-day pot roast in about 90 minutes. It's an easy, weeknight-friendly spin on a traditional favorite.
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This recipe is a German senfbraten (mustard roast), pork rubbed with mustard and cooked with onions, carrots, and thyme. I use my Instant Pot Beef Pot Roast trick of cutting the roast into pieces - it cooks faster and more evenly. Other than that, it's a standard pot roast; brown it to add a flavorful crust, sauté the onions, simmer in a little wine, add the pork and some broth, and cook with carrots until falling-apart tender. (You don't have to add the carrots, but they're my wife's favorite part. I get asked a lot of pointed questions if there aren't carrots.)
I like to make this recipe with a side of Sauerkraut and Kielbasa, and Instant Pot German Potato Salad or Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes.
Ingredients Notes and Substitutions
- Cuts of pork: This recipe is best with pork shoulder. Cuts from the leg will work as well (like a fresh ham roast). Avoid cuts from the loin; pork loin is too lean to stand up to the long pressure cooking time.
- Mustard: My favorite mustard for this recipe is a grainy brown mustard, but any mustard will do - use Dijon to be fancy, or even cheap yellow mustard.
- Wine: I simmer the wine to boil off some of the alcohol, but you can never boil all the alcohol away. If you are strict about not having any alcohol, substitute more chicken broth or apple cider.
- Thyme: I like the combination of mustard and thyme with pork; you can skip the thyme if you don't have it. Or, if you have fresh thyme, substitute 1 teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves for the dried thyme.
Tips and Tricks
- Smaller or larger roasts: You can cook almost any size pork roast with these instructions, as long as you cut it into roughly 2- by 2- by 4-inch pieces. The timing on the recipe stays the same, because the cooking time is determined by the size of each piece, not the total weight. Scale the rest of the ingredients up or down, except for the liquids (wine and chicken broth). Use the same amount of liquids in the recipe, no matter how much pork you have - a pressure cooker needs that much liquid to come up to pressure.
- Searing on one side: Searing meat before pot roasting adds a lot of flavor - the browned meat tastes better, and the browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pot add flavor to the pot liquid. Searing on one side is my way to get the browned flavors without the extra time of browning the meat on all sides. (If you don't have the time to brown the pork, you can skip it and move on to sautéing the onion as the first step - but the pork is better if it is seared.)
- Defatting the pot liquid: You can skip the defatting step if you want, but there is a lot of fat in pork shoulder, so I like to defat the pot liquid before I use it.
Recipe Inspired by: https://www.daringgourmet.com/traditional-german-senfbraten-mustard-gravy-pork-roast/
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Instant Pot German Pot Roast with Mustard (Senfbraten)
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Description
Instant Pot German Pot Roast with Mustard. Senfbraten is a traditional German mustard roast, and this version is done in about 90 minutes thanks to pressure cooking.
Ingredients
- 3- to 4-pound boneless pork shoulder roast, cut into 4 pieces, each roughly 2-inches by 2-inches by 4-inches
- 1 ½ teaspoons fine sea salt (for the pork)
- 2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 large onion, diced
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt (for the onions)
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ cup white wine (dry Riesling is traditional) or water
- 3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch lengths
- 1 cup chicken broth or water
Instructions
- Season and sear the roast: Cut the pork shoulder roast into 4 pieces, each piece roughly 2- by 2- by 4-inches. Sprinkle the pork pieces with 1 ½ teaspoons of salt, and then rub with the spicy brown mustard to coat. Heat 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil in an Instant Pot using Sauté mode adjusted to high. (Use medium-high heat in a stovetop pressure cooker.) When the oil is shimmering, add the pork. Sear the pork roast in two batches, two pieces at a time. Sear each piece on its largest side until it is well browned, about 4 minutes per batch. After searing, set the pork aside in a bowl.
- Sauté the aromatics: Add the butter to the pressure cooker pot and melt the butter. Add the onions and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon salt and the dried thyme. Sauté until the onion softens, about 5 minutes, stirring and scraping the browned pork bits from the bottom of the pot with a flat-edged wooden spoon. Pour in the wine, bring to a simmer, and simmer for 1 minute to boil off some of the alcohol.
- Everything in the pot: Pour in the chicken broth and scrape the bottom of the pot one last time to loosen any browned bits of onion. Add the pork (and any pork juices) to the pot, then scatter the carrots on top.
- Pressure cook the pot roast for 45 minutes with a natural pressure release: Lock the pressure cooker lid and cook at high pressure for 45 minutes (Use Manual or Pressure Cook mode in an Instant Pot), or for 38 minutes in a stovetop PC. Let the pressure come down naturally, about 20 more minutes.
- Defat the sauce and serve: Gently move the pieces of pork to a serving platter with tongs or a slotted spoon. (The pork is fall-apart tender at this point.) Scoop the carrots and onions into a serving bowl with a slotted spoon. Pour the remaining liquid in the pot into a fat separator and let it settle for five minutes. Cut each piece of pork in half to make serving-sized pieces, pour a little of the defatted sauce over the pork, and serve, passing the rest of the defatted sauce and the vegetables on the side. Enjoy!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Category: Sunday Dinner
- Method: Pressure Cooker
- Cuisine: German
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 piece of pork
- Calories: 303
- Sugar: 3.2 g
- Sodium: 958.2 mg
- Fat: 14.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 6.6 g
- Protein: 34.1 g
- Cholesterol: 117.7 mg
Storing leftovers
Pork pot roast makes fantastic leftovers. You can store it in the refrigerator for a few days in the defatted pot liquid, and reheat for serving. To freeze, break the pork up into shreds, put it in 2-cup containers, add some carrots, and pour defatted pot liquid over the top. Sealed containers of frozen pork will last for up to 6 months in the freezer.
What do you think?
Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.
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Or, check out my complete Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Recipes list for more recipe ideas
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A says
Great recipe! My family loves it!
Mike Vrobel says
Thanks, I'm glad they enjoy it!
Martha Doane says
This is great and a new favorite!