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.
Going to have to give this one a try. What is the herb in the pictures you added after cooking?
Just a little cilantro, used more for garnish than anything. :)
I used pork rib roast (no bone) since there seems to be a shortage of pork butt where I live, and used my instant pot. I also subbed cayenne for the chipotle powder, since I don’t have any of that. Otherwise I followed the instructions and did it on high pressure for 45 min, 10 min NPR and then released the rest.
I think I was a little light on the salt because it was a bit bland out of the pot, but frying it the meat perked it up. I had it with a lime crema, some guacamole, some pickled red onions, and some tortilla chips. It was awesome. I’m so excited for nachos tomorrow.
Can we use ground cinnamon inst of the sticks?
Probably, but I’m not sure how much without experimenting with it. :(
I used chicken thighs for this recipe. The house smelled great and made my mouth water. It was worth the wait.
I had three thoughts while making this. 1. Why do I have to cube up the meat ugh (but I did) 2. That much orange zest for taco meat had me worried. 3. Halfway through cooking I was worried about how much it smelled like cinnamon. This is literally the best thing that’s ever been in my crockpot. You’ll never catch hamburger with the packet of seasoning on my Mexican again. Best nachos I’ve ever made. Thank you budget bytes for my awakening
Hahah, I love it. :) I’m so glad you trusted the process! :D
Made this and paired it with the roasted sweet potato rainbow salad (and lime crema!) the combination was incredible!
Looks delicious! Do you think a pork loin would be an ok replacement for a pork butt, or is it too lean? Thanks!
It’s definitely too lean to get that nice rich flavor of carnitas. It might still taste good, but it won’t be that melt-in-your-mouth good. ;)
I love love love love carnitas – one of the things I do is take the liquid leftover from cooking the pork and while I’m de-icking it (excess fat, weird stringy bits, etc), I reduce the liquid down until it’s practically a syrup. Meat goes back in, gets tossed in the deliciousness and then roasted in the oven for extra crispyness and caramelization.
Hey Beth, I have this in the slow cooker right now and it smells AMAZING. Question for you: I cut the recipe in half and put it in a smaller Crock Pot — should this reduce the cooking time as well?
👏👏👏
This sounds delicious! Beth, you’ve inspired me to get a slow cooker with all of your delicious looking recipes. Do you think that your recipes would require a specific minimum size? I’m only cooking for myself and don’t have much cabinet or counter space for storage, so would want to get the smallest size possible. Thanks!
I feel like a 5 quart offers the most recipe flexibility (that’s the size of mine). Most recipes on the internet use a 5-6 quart cooker, so you’ll have more options.
Ok, great. Thank you so much! I found a good 6-quart cooker, but I was afraid it seemed ridiculously large just for me. Thanks!
I think I did something wrong – I only had powdered oregano – so I probably used WAY too much. It was super strong – and I was so bummed! Do you think that was it? I want to try it again and be more careful about the spices.
That was probably it. :( I’d try half the amount next time if you’re still using powdered.
I have a 3 lb shoulder with bone in. Can you tell me how to adapt this recipe and keep the butt whole? In the IP?
I would try to cut as many chunks off the bone as possible, but then throw everything in there (even the piece with the bone) and just fish the bone out after cooking. That way you won’t lose any meat. For the IP, I would check the chart in the manual to see how long to cook pork roasts and use that time/setting.
Thanks. Actually, I went ahead and just threw the whole thing in whole and just let it cook on low about 11 hours ( I think it was 5 lbs). It turned out great. I didn’t have time to make the pickled onions so I just sauteed some onions and red peppers. Served it in flour tortillas. Maybe I’ll try it in the IP next time . Don’t know why I didn’t think to check the book for cooking times.
I make a very similar recipe in the Instant Pot (as you suggested) but speed up the crisping process by putting however much meat I’m ready to serve with some of the juices under the broiler for a few. Easy peasy… and delicious!
Do the garlic cloves separate once cooked, when the meat is shredded?
Yep, mine pretty much disintegrated. :)