This Carnitas recipe may be time consuming, buy boy is it delicious! A Texas style take on classic Mexican style carnitas, this pork dish is unbelievable in tacos, on burgers, or even by itself – you name it and it pairs incredibly well!
Ingredients
3 lbs (1.4 kg) pork butt or pork shoulder
1/2 cup (120mL) orange juice
1/3 cup (60mL) lime juice
16 cloves of garlic
1 tsp (6g) kosher salt
1 tsp (2.1g) ground cumin
Directions
- Cut the pork into 2 inch cubes and throw into a dutch oven or big pot
- Mix your orange juice, lime juice, salt, and cumin into a container, cup, or some sort of vessel and mix it to dissolve the salt
- Crush your garlic and add it to your mixture
- Place the pot onto the stovetop and add your mixture. Add enough water to the pot to barely cover the meat
- Bring to a simmer and cook for ~2 hours. DO NOT touch the meat – let it be.
- The liquid should mostly be evaporated by this point. Raise the heat to medium high and finish evaporating the rest of the liquid. This will leave the pork fat that rendered from the meat in the pot. Slowly turn the pieces of meat so they turn brown and crispy on all sides – they will be fragile to the touch. If you want shredded pork, simply continue turning all the pieces with the force of 10 gorillas – it will be good regardless of what you do. This should take ~45 minutes.
- Take off the heat and enjoy on a taco, a burger, or even with some eggs!
My favorite way to eat these carnitas is on a corn tortilla with some coleslaw mix and a bunch of fresh squeezed lime juice!
