Hi!  I'm Noreen, wife, mother of two amazing, almost grown, daughters, content creator, cook, baker and sister in Christ. Welcome to my Kitchen!   I hope you stick around, enjoy the recipes and share them with those you love!

Noreen's Kitchen

Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas

Ingredients

1 Cup good quality mayonnaise
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Slow cooker pork carnitas

This all starts off with a portion of boneless pork shoulder.  I purchased a bone in shoulder and cut it into 2 inch chunks.  You can also find boneless pork shoulder and use that or even better is boneless country pork ribs.  Those are cut from the shoulder and they suffice here very well.  You want to have a cut that is very fatty.  The fat is very important here as the cooking process requires it.  You cannot do this with a pork loin or a leaner cut of pork.  It just won't work.  If you are afraid of pork fat, this recipe may not be for you.  Traditional carnitas are actually cooked in rendered lard.  What we are doing here is using the rendered fat from the meat to cook the pork in.  Kind of like duck Confit.  Confit is a process where a meat is cooked, low and slow in it's own fat and is a very old way of preserving meat for the winter.  Just go with it.  You will thank me later.

I am going to douse the meat with a good portion of the seasoning blend and mix it up in the crock.  Then I added a copious amount of garlic and a sliced onion as well as an orange that I quartered and squeezed the juice from and tossed the rest of the orange in for good measure.  One of the secrets is one can or 12 ounces of Mexican Coca Cola or in my case a natural, all sugar Pepsi.  You will not want to use regular Coke or Pepsi here as you will want to avoid anything containing regular or high fructose corn syrup due to the recipe not turning out just right with those ingredients.  If you cannot find Mexican Coca Cola or all sugar natural Pepsi then you can leave it out.  

All of these ingredients go into the crock and now we wait.  This cooks on high for up to 8 hours or on low for 10 to 12 hours.  This would be great on low, cooked overnight, if you can handle the delicious aroma wafting from the kitchen while you sleep.  Once the meat is soft and easily shredded with a fork, it's done.  Then you can move on to the next step and you are even closer to your tacos!

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3-4 pounds boneless pork shoulder cut into cubes
1 orange, juiced and quartered
1 medium onion, sliced
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 bottle, Mexican Coca Cola or equivalent
¼ cup of carnitas seasoning

Step by Step Instructions

When the meat is fully shredable, remove it from the crock with a slotted spoon to a pan for holding.  You want to avoid scooping as much liquid with the meat as possible.  We are then going to strain the liquid from the crock and then skim all the rendered fat off of it.  Now is a great time to get your gravy skimmer out to make this job really easy.  You can discard all the cooking liquid but not the fat.  In the end from 4 pounds of pork shoulder, I got 1 cup of rendered pork fat that was seasoned with all the flavors that we cooked the meat in.  That is pure gold!  We are going to use this fat to crispify our taco meat!

Take a bit of the fat and add it to a hot skillet.  Toss in a good portion of the shredded carnitas.  Cook until it begins to crisp and keep going until you attain your personal level of crispness.  Then build your tacos any way you like.  We used fresh cilantro, sour cream, salsa rojo and verde as well as some delicious pickled red onions to top them off perfectly!

I hope you give these slow cooked pork carnitas a try sometime soon and I hope you love them!

Happy Eating!

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Place roast in vessel of your slow cooker.

Spread minced garlic over the top.

Sprinkle seasoning over meat evenly.

Add onion and cola.

Stir well to combine.

Cook on high for 6 to 8 hours or on low for 8 to 10 hours.

Remove cooked roast from slow cooker, leaving behind liquid.  Shred meat lightly.

Strain remaining liquid from the slow cooker and then skim off the fat.  Reserving the fat for the next step.  You can discard the liquid.

Heat a skillet and add a bit of the reserved fat.  Add some of the meat and allow to fry to give crispness.  When crisp to your liking, remove and enjoy on homemade street style tacos.

 Look for the carnitas seasoning here: PORK CARNITAS SEASONING

Today we are going to use some of that Carnitas seasoning blend to make a delicious slow cooked carnitas for tacos or whatever you like.  This is super easy to do but as a dump and go recipe goes this is a little more entailed but so worth it in the end!  Slow cooked pork shoulder with delicious spices until it falls apart and then gets crispy fried in a skillet then stuffed into a flavorful street taco with all the fixings.  What could be better than that?  Perfect for anytime you want to make tacos or burritos.  Perfect for parties, tailgates or taco Tuesday!  I know that you are going to love this!

Carnitas is a very traditional dish and while mine may be a bit untraditional, it is still delicious.  Anyone who would like to tell me that I am doing it all wrong, can simply save it for someone who cares.  Just because I don't do it your way just means I do it different.  Kind of like math.  If we reach the same end, what difference does it make how we got here?  So I will leave at that.

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