Slow Cooker Carnitas

Hey home cooking friends! Today we’re making homemade Carnitas!

Carnitas is a Mexican pulled pork that’s incredibly delicious and can be used in any number of Mexican dishes, from tacos, to burritos, to Pozole, and more. Bonus, it’s as easy to make as it is versatile.

We’ll make a simple 5 ingredient dry rub that will give our pork tons of flavor.

Then we’ll throw it into the slow cooker with a few other aromatic ingredients that will enhance the flavor and help tenderize our meat, for fall apart juicy pulled pork.

For our pork, we’ll be using a 5 lb boneless pork picnic roast. We’ll remove the netting, along with any silver skin, but leave the fat, it add delicious flavor. Cut it into a few large chunks, approximately 4 inches, just to help make sure it cooks evenly for optimal tenderness, and place it in the slow cooker.

Sprinkle our dry rub all over the pork massaging it by hand to coat all over. I like to place the pieces with a layer of fat on top, so that as the fat cooks, and renders down, it will drip down all over the meat below it, for added flavor throughout.

Then we’ll toss our sliced onion and chopped garlic right on top of the meat, along with the juice of a lime and some orange juice.

Then cover and cook on high for 5 hours, until the pork is fall apart tender. Easily shred it into chunks, not too finely, and allow to soak in juices until you are ready to caramelize. If you are prepping this ahead of time, you can refrigerate it either now or after caramelization.

To caramelize our pork, my favorite method is in the oven under the broiler. Simply spread the meat onto a baking sheet in a single layer (the full recipe will be 2 baking sheets) and broil on high for about 3 minutes. Then flip and broil 3 minutes longer on the other side to golden perfection.

Enjoy in street tacos, Pozole, and more!

Watch us make it here:

Slow Cooker Carnitas

Carnitas is a Mexican pulled pork that's incredibly delicious and can be used in any number of Mexican dishes, from tacos, to burritos, to Pozole, and more. Bonus, it's as easy to make as it is versatile. We'll make a simple 5 ingredient dry rub that will give our pork tons of flavor, then throw it into the slow cooker with a few other aromatic ingredients that will enhance the flavor and help tenderize our meat, for fall apart juicy pulled pork. Finish it off by caramelizing for a few minutes in the oven for the prefect balance of flavors and textures.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 5 hours hrs 5 minutes mins

Total Time 5 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mexican

Servings 12

Ingredients

  

• 5 LB boneless pork roast
• 1 Tbsp sea salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 large white or yellow onion sliced
• 4-5 cloves garlic chopped
• 1 lime juiced
• 1 orange or 1/3 cup orange juice

Instructions

 

• Combine sea salt, black pepper, oregano, cumin, and chili powder in a bowl for dry rub.
• Remove netting and silver skin from pork roast, leaving fat, and cut into large 4 inch chunks. Place in slow cooker.
• Sprinkle dry rub over pork, and rub with hands to coat pork all over. Leave pieces with fat on top of pile so that juices will drip down as fat renders.
• Top pork with onions, garlic, lime juice and orange juice.
• Cover and cook on high for 5 hours.
• Use tongs to gently shred into bite size pieces, removing any excess fat, and leave shredded pork to soak in juices until ready to finish and serve.
• Spread pork onto baking sheets in a single layer, and broil in oven on high for 2-3 minutes. Flip over and broil 2-3 minutes longer until golden and caramelized.
• Serve in tacos, Pozole, and more!

Keyword carnitas, shredded pork