Slow Cooker Carnitas

I just have to say that I love freaking carnitas. You all know that I am a pork fiend and will eat it day or night if I could. And carnitas are no exception!

Anyway, one day I got an email from god knows where and it included a recipe for crock pot carnitas, so I printed it out and decided to make it. I have made carnitas before by roasting a piece of pork all day but it is pretty time intensive. I figured this was a slow cooker recipe so I couldn't screw it up. So I bought my pork shoulder and got busy.

I don't have to tell you that I barely followed the recipe. Oh there were so many instructions and blah blah blah. So as usual, I just willy-nilly added and deleted ingredients from the recipe.

I started out with chopped onions and garlic. The recipe called for limes and oranges cut in quarters and thrown in with the meat. I was a little iffy on this part of the recipe but I did it nonetheless.

I should have followed my instinct and just used the juice. While the limes and oranges added lots of flavor, there was a little bitter taste to the sauce because of the lime pith. Next time, I am going to juice the orange and limes and zest the skins and add it to the crock pot.

The recipe gave me a long list of spices to add and, luckily, I had most of them and then some. I added about a 1/4 cup of water, red chile powder, my famous Santa Fe green chile powder, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. I also added garlic and onion powder and fresh cilantro to the crock pot. I popped in the pork and set it to cook all day. The house smelled amazing.


After the pork was cooked, I took the pork out and shredded it to make the carnita tacos. You have to have diced onions and cilantro for carnitas. I also had some jalapenos and diced tomatoes. I also made some delish Costa Rican black beans as a side dish.


I wish I had a tortilla press because I would have so made my own tortillas but I opted for the easy thing and had store bought tortillas. I also had a little lime to squeeze over the carnitas. Let me tell you that they were absolutely fantastic.

I prefer roasted or fried carnitas because they are crunchier but this recipe (with a little tweaks) was easy and Tom said my carnitas were just as good as the ones we get at our favorite Mexican restaurant in town. WOO!!!!

And if I do say so myself, they were darn good! And the recipe was so easy. I love slow cooker cooking because you just add stuff to the crock pot and don't think about. Next week, I am going to do a crock pot pot roast that is so easy, even a child could make it!