Pork Carnitas are basically delicious slow cooked Mexican pulled pork and takes a bit of cooking time, but it’s well worth it. We cooked ours up on a Sunday, when we knew we’d be home most of the day. It’s classically made by slow cooking the pork in lard, but for the sake of our waistlines, we used chicken stock instead. It can be used in tacos, burritos, nachos or burrito bowls! We used them for tacos the first night and then used the leftovers for burrito bowls for weekday lunches (food prep = done).

 

What you’ll need:

Pork Shoulder or “Boston Butt” – size depends on how much you’d like to make, we used a 3 pound piece of meat

Orange, to juice and cook with meat

Onion, 1 large, cut into wedges

Chicken Stock, about 1 cup

Garlic, about 4 whole cloves

Grapeseed Oil, about 2 tablespoons (or another neutral oil)

Dry Rub Spice Mix:

Salt, 1 tablespoon

Pepper, 1/2 tablespoon

Smoked Paprika, 1 teaspoon

Oregano, 1 teaspoon

Cumin, 1 teaspoon

Sugar, 2 tablespoons

 

Mix all of the spices together and rub onto the meat. You want to cover the meat liberally, but you won’t necessarily need to use all of the spice mix. It will depend on your size of the meat.

Over medium-high heat, add oil to the pan. Then add the onions and garlic and cook for about 2 or 3 minutes. Next, add the meat, with the goal being to brown on each side, about 5 minutes per side. This helps to bring out that good flavor.

Squeeze in the juice from the orange and toss it into the pot and add the chicken stock. Turn down the heat to low and let it cook for a long time. The cook time will depend on the size of the meat (ours was about 3 pounds), but we cooked ours for about 6 hours. The goal is to have the meat falling off the bone and super tender in the end.

You’ll want to remove the meat from the bone and “pull” the pork apart a little, but still leave some bigger chunks. Then, take the cooking juices, onion and garlic and give it a quick buzz in a blender. Take some of that pan sauce you just created and pour it over the pork and broil in the oven for about 5-10 minutes. This is what gives the carnitas their crispy deliciousness.

Put the carnitas on some tortillas with your favorite taco toppings and enjoy!