The Best Carnitas {Mexican Pulled Pork}
The Best Carnitas {Mexican Pulled Pork} is cooked in the oven, then broiled! This gives the pork amazing flavor and is perfect for tacos, burritos, or quesadillas!
Ingredients
Carnitas Ingredients
- 4 pounds boneless pork butt cut into 2-inch chunks, remove any excess fat
- 2 cups water
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- juice from one lime
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 medium-sized onion peeled and halved
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 large naval orange halved
- salt and pepper
Taco Ingredients
- Tortillas
- Salsa (Classic Salsa Recipe)
- Guacamole (The Best Guacamole Recipe)
- Any of your favorite taco toppings
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Cut the boneless pork into 2-inch chunks.
- In a large dutch oven heated over medium-high heat, combine pork, water, lime juice, cumin, bay leaves, dried oregano, juice from orange, orange halves, and onion halves. Simmer for about 10 minutes, then cover and transfer to the oven.
- Bake for about 2 hours, stirring halfway through. When the meat is tender, remove the dutch oven from the oven.
- Use a slotted spoon to remove the meat from the dutch oven and transfer it to a large bowl. Discard the bay leaves, orange halves, and onion halves. Place the dutch oven with the cooking liquid on the stove over high heat. At this point you want to reduce the liquid down to about a cup. It will be a thick almost syrup like consistency. This will take about 15 minutes.
- While the liquid is reducing, turn the broiler on to high, and take two forks to split each piece of meat into two so that you are left with smaller pieces of meat.
- Transfer the meat pieces to a rimmed baking sheet. When the liquid has reduced down to a cup, pour it over the meat mixture and toss to coat.
- Place the meat in the broiler for about 8 minutes, then use a spatula to flip the meat and cook it for 8 minutes longer. When the meat is crispy, it's done.
- Use the carnitas for tacos, quesadillas, or burritos.