I am so excited about this recipe! If there is one thing that our family loves, it is Mexican food. We eat it at least once a week and it usually consists of some sort of taco. Well, this week I decided to try to make one of my husbands favorite Mexican taco meats at home from scratch. He loves carnitas and orders it quite often if we are eating Mexican food out. I had never tried it at home and was very, very pleased with this recipe and the finished product. The pork was so flavorful and juicy and the house smelled so wonderful with it roasting in the oven all afternoon. It makes quite a bit of meat, so if you would like, you can set aside some of the meat after it comes out of the oven for left over and when you are ready to eat it you can reheat it under the broiler as mentioned in step 11 below. I also reheated it in the microwave and it was delicious. You can eat carnitas in many differet ways, but we made tacos and topped them with cheese, chopped green chili, tomatoes and guacamole. They were delicious! We will definitely be making this a regular dish in our home.
Carnitas Printer Friendly VersionIngredients
3-4 pounds of boneless pork shoulder (or pork butt) or 4-5lbs of bone-in pork shoulder
Spice Rub:
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried oregano
Braising Liquid:
3/4 cup orange juice
Water to cover (about 2 cups)
1 onion, quartered
1 jalapeno, halved and seeds removed (optional)
Directions
- Heat a dutch oven or other heavy bottomed oven-ready lidded pan over medium high heat with just enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom .
- Pre-heat oven to 300ºF
- Cut pork into 1-2″ cubes, trimming large sections of fat off (we need fat for the flavor, so just cut off any real large pieces). Toss pork pieces with spice rub.
- Brown the cubed pork well in the dutch oven, going in batches so there is only one layer of meat at a time.
- When all the meat is browned, deglaze the pan’s bottom with the orange juice, stirring to break up the brown bits. Introduce all of the meat back to the pan and cover with water until it’s nearly submerged. Add the onion ad jalapeno into the liquid with the meat.
- Bring to a simmer, cover, and place in the oven. Cook for about 3 hours.
- Stir the pot after one and two hours, the pork should be very tender towards the third hour. When you’re confortable with the tenderness, evacuate all the pork to a platter and begin to boil the braising liquid on the stove top.
- After letting the pork cool for a few minutes work through with your hands to separate and discard any fat or gristle pieces that hadn’t melted in the braise. Shred the meat into smaller pieces.
- Turn your broiler on to high and place a rack towards the top
- Toss the now shredded pork with some of the reduced braising liquid (that should have boiled down significantly by now) and spread in a single layer on a sheet pan.
- Broil the pork for approximately five minutes per side until the outside begins to carmelize.
- Enjoy!
Adapted From: It’s For Dinner
it looks very tasty! excellent work! 😀
I’m sure this was amazing! I love pork so much it hurts.
My husband will go nuts for this!!! Mexican is a favorite for us as well, we have a casserole that he requests at least every other week. This one I”m really eager to try!!! Thank you!!
Fan of Mexican food here, too! This looks really yummy 🙂
I’m so psyched to find a recipe for pulled-pork/carnitas that doesn’t rely on a slow-cooker! I bet the leftover pork is even better ;).
So yummy looking. Love the cumin.
we LOVE mexican food and eat is almost daily..perfect canitas!!
sweetlife
Carnitas are one of my favorites, too; your husband must be an incredibly intelligent man! And these looks fantastic!
This sounds amazingly delicious! And photo..oh my, it’s perfect!
Love it!!