Okay, this Slow Cooker Carnitas recipe might be the best thing I’ve ever made in my slow cooker. No joke. The combination of the warm spices, orange essence, and richness of the slowly cooked pulled pork is absolutely to die for. I hereby retire my chili rubbed pork recipe in favor of these Slow Cooker Carnitas. I need a stash of this flavorful and tender pulled pork in my freezer at all times for tacos, burritos, and NACHOS. Oh yes, the nachos I could make with this pork would be EPIC. And you just won’t believe how easy it is to make carnitas with a slow cooker! Let’s go!
What is Carnitas?
Carnitas, which translates to “little meats”, is a Mexican pulled pork flavored with warm spices and orange. The dish is traditionally made with a fat-marbled cut of pork, like a Boston butt or picnic roast, which gives the meat an incredibly rich flavor and tender mouthfeel. The pulled pork is often used for tacos, burritos, taquitos, and more.
Ingredients for Carnitas
You don’t need a lot of ingredients to make slow cooker carnitas that are full of flavor and deliciously tender. Here’s what you’ll need for this recipe:
- Pork: Choose a fatty cut of pork like Boston butt or a picnic roast. The marbled fat is essential to create the correct flavor and texture in this slow cooked pulled pork.
- Onion and Garlic: These classic savory aromatics create a deep savory base for the flavor profile.
- Spices: A combination of warm spices like cinnamon, chipotle (smoked jalapeño), cumin, oregano, salt, and pepper give carnitas its intense and aromatic flavor.
- Orange: The subtle fresh citrus flavor of orange peels and sweetness from the orange juice provide a nice contrast to the warm spices, keeping the overall flavor profile complex and interesting.
How to Make Carnitas Tender and Crispy
One of the reasons carnitas are so good is the tender texture with crispy edges. Cooking the pork low and slow creates a tender meat that shreds easily, but finishing the pork in a skillet, and frying the pork in its own rendered fat, creates crispy edges. It’s best to fry the slow-cooked meat just before serving to get the best crispy edges.
Instant Pot Carnitas
This slow cooker carnitas recipe converts very easily to an Instant Pot. To make Instant Pot carnitas, simply layer all of the ingredients in the Instant Pot like you would in the slow cooker, secure the lid, and cook on high pressure for about 50 minutes. Natural release, shred, and crisp up the meat in a skillet as usual.
How to Serve Slow Cooker Carnitas
This delicious Mexican pulled pork is so good in everything, you will be so happy to have some stashed in your freezer. Try using your carnitas for burritos, tacos, taco salads, nachos, pulled pork sandwiches, quesadillas, and burrito bowls.
To make your carnitas into a full meal, try topping them with some pickled red onions or spicy pickled carrots, and adding some cumin lime roasted sweet potatoes, or corn and avocado salad on the side! And you might as well add some chips and guacamole too!
How to Store and Reheat Leftovers
This recipe has become one of my absolute favorites for meal prep! It freezes well so I can make a huge batch and portion it out as needed before freezing. After cooking, divide and transfer the pulled pork to food storage containers, with the juices, and chill completely in the refrigerator. Once chilled the carnitas will stay good in the refrigerator for about five days, or it can be transferred to the freezer and stored for about three months.
To reheat carnitas from the refrigerator, place the meat in a hot skillet and cook over medium until the liquid evaporates, the meat is heated through, and the edges have become crispy. To reheat from frozen, first allow the meat to thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then reheat in the same manner as the refrigerated carnitas.
Slow Cooker Carnitas
Servings 8Ingredients
- 1 yellow onion ($0.32)
- 4 cloves garlic ($0.32)
- 2 small cinnamon sticks ($0.95)
- 1/2 Tbsp oregano ($0.08)
- 1/2 Tbsp cumin ($0.08)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
- Freshly cracked pepper ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp chipotle pepper powder ($0.05)
- 3 lbs pork butt roast ($5.26)
- 2 small oranges ($0.67)
Instructions
- Dice the onion and peel the garlic cloves. Place the onion, garlic, and cinnamon sticks in the bottom of the slow cooker.
- In a small bowl, combine the oregano, cumin, salt, pepper, and chipotle powder. Cut the pork roast into 2-inch cubes. Place the cubed meat in a bowl and sprinkle the spice mix over top. Toss the meat in the spices until evenly coated. Place the seasoned meat in the slow cooker on top of the onion, garlic, and cinnamon.
- Use a vegetable peeler to remove the thin layer of orange zest from one of the oranges. Squeeze about 1/2 cup juice from the oranges. Pour the orange juice over the meat in the slow cooker, than sprinkle the pieces of orange zest over top.
- Place a lid on the slow cooker, turn it on to high, and cook for 5 hours, or until the meat is tender and falls apart.
- Use tongs to stir and shred the meat, and remove the cinnamon sticks. Either divide the meat and liquid into smaller containers to refrigerate for later, or transfer the meat and some of the liquid to a skillet (preferably non-stick or cast iron). Cook the meat over medium flame until browned and crispy on the edges. Avoid stirring the meat too much as it will break down into tiny pieces. Use the crispy meat as a filling for tacos, burritos, nachos, or burrito bowls.
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Equipment
Notes
Nutrition
How to Make Slow Cooker Carnitas – Step by Step Photos
Dice one yellow onion and peel four cloves of garlic. Place the diced onion, garlic cloves, and two small cinnamon sticks in the bottom of the slow cooker.
These are the cinnamon sticks I use. These little packets of four small sticks are found in the Hispanic food section of my local grocery store and only cost $1.89. So, if cinnamon sticks are expensive in the spice aisle, check the international foods aisle as well.
In a small bowl stir together 1/2 Tbsp oregano, 1/2 Tbsp cumin 1/2 tsp salt, some freshly cracked pepper, and 1/2 tsp chipotle pepper powder.
You’ll also need one pork butt roast, about 3 lbs. If you use a bone-in roast, just get one slightly larger than 3 lbs. and don’t forget to pull the bones out after cooking.
Cut the pork into 2-inch cubes, place them in a bowl, and sprinkle the spice mix over top. Toss the meat cubes in the spices until they’re evenly coated, then place them in the slow cooker on top of the onion, garlic, and cinnamon.
Use a vegetable peeler to remove the zest from one of the oranges. You want to get all the nice orange parts with the fragrant oils, but not the white pith, which can be bitter. Also, juice the oranges. You need about 1/2 cup juice.
Pour the orange juice over the meat…
And add the orange peels on top of the pork.
Place the lid on the slow cooker, turn it on to high, and cook for 5 hours. See how much liquid comes out of the meat? That’s good stuff right there.
Use a pair of tongs to stir and shred the meat. Fish out the cinnamon sticks (and bones, if you used a bone-in roast) at this time. You can serve the meat just as it is, or you can crisp it up in a skillet.
OR you can refrigerate it or freeze it for later. If refrigerating/freezing, I highly recommend dividing the meat up into smaller portions before refrigerating (store it with the cooking juices). This helps it cool faster and prevents food safety issues. If you want to freeze some of it, let it chill in the refrigerator overnight before transferring to the freezer.
To make the carnitas crispy, just cook it in a skillet with some of the juices (because you need the fat from the slow cooker to basically fry the meat) until it’s crispy. I recommend doing this in some sort of non-stick skillet though, like cast iron, ceramic, or Teflon, because the liquified collagen likes to stick to and coat stainless steel.
And that’s basically it! It’s just that easy to make tender, juicy, and FLAVORFUL slow cooker carnitas.
Think cutie oranges would work well with this?
I have been making this recipe (or something very similar) for years, but haven’t made it recently. Glad to see it come up on my favorite food site! Thanks for the reminder! The other recipe I’ve used just says throw the juiced orange halves right in there with the pork, so if clumsy like me or don’t want to fiddle with the zest, this option works as well. :)
Just finished putting this together as a surprise “thank you” dinner for my inlaws for letting us stay with them because our power is out. I used thick cut bone in pork chops bc they were on sale for cheaper than pork butt. It already smells great!
Do you think this would work with a beef roast?
I cooked a roast beef with orange juice once. It was good.
OK we made these last night and they were amazing. 10/10
Better than any carnitas I’ve ever had a restaurant.
What would you personally add topping-wise for said “epic” nachos? I’m definitely interested in makings these soon.
I like fresh jalapenos, I’d probably add those pickled red onions, maybe even some black beans or corn kernels, cheese, and then after the oven fresh cilantro and fresh diced tomato. YUM.
My God, it makes me salivate!
Made this tonight for my weekly meat (I use it in everything the rest of the week) delicious!!! Love it
All i have is pork ribs. Could i use that instead of pork roast? Thanks!!
I’ve never used ribs in a recipe like this, so I’m really not sure.
Sorry to hog the thread here, but this is a recipe after my heart. Consider substituting boneless chicken thighs, just trim them pretty well and brown them before throwing them in the slow cooker.
Really! Good to know because I LOVE chicken thighs! I wouldn’t have guessed that the would be as good as the pork, but I’ll take your word for it.
We make something like this at least monthly, I really like your version. In ours we blend onion, garlic, cumin and a can of cola. If you like drier carnitas, take the meat out of the slow cooker and put it in the oven to dry and crisp it. Off to make carnitas!
What a perfect way to use a slow cooker! I am annoyed with slow cooker recipes that can be done just as easily in 30 minutes on top of the stove, but this recipe is designed for low and slow. My DIL, who wants a lower fat version of carnitas, uses boneless pork chops when they are on sale for $2.99 or less–price is a little higher than your version, but with liquid in the crock pot, they don’t suffer from lower fat content. So many terrific ways to use what is basically pulled pork, and this flavor profile looks wonderful. I’m dreaming of tacos, enchiladas, sandwiches, etc
Totally agree, the cheaper the pork, the better. If it isn’t fatty enough, you can add some oil.
I love pork or chicken cooked with citrus. Orange and cinnamon is a favorite flavor combination.
You should check the Crispy Cuban Chicken from Bon Appetit’s Cooking Without Recipes series.. While it’s typically served with rice, avocado and maybe black beans, it’s also good in tacos, burritos, on top of greens with a citrus-based dressing. It’s very versatile.
That sounds good! I’m going to go check it out now. Thanks!!
I haven’t used my slow cooker in a while and now I have an excuse to!! I LOVE carnitas!
Hi Beth can I just use regular ground cinnamon? Would I just add it to the spice mix used to coat the meat? Would it help to brown the meat before putting in the slow cooker?
You probably can add some ground cinnamon to the spice mix, although I don’t know how much to suggest to give it just that hint of cinnamon that mine had… maybe 1/2 tsp? Browning the meat first always adds extra yumminess. :)