Crock Pot Pork Carnitas

After doing pulled pork in the crock pot for many years, I decided to try making carnitas instead; because it's really just different seasonings.

After consulting a carnitas making momma that I'm friends with as well as about 20 recipes online, I found that this is my favorite way to make carnitas that is kid friendly (aka flavorful, but not spicy).

Ingredients:

---

• 4 - 5 lbs of boneless pork shoulder or butt
• 2 Tablespoons of dried oregano
• 3 Teaspoons of ground cumin
• 1 Onion, large roughly chopped
• 4 Tablespoons of minced garlic (depending on size of cloves, could be 4+ cloves)
• 2 jalapenos, chopped (optional and I usually remove the seeds and ribs if it do use it)
• 2 Oranges, cut in half
• 2 Bottles of amber or fruit beer (I have used SA Oktoberfest and Pineapple Shady, Lemon Shady)
• 1 cup Orange Juice (optional) - Sometimes if I feel my oranges haven't provided a lot of liquid I'll add orange juice as well
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Tablespoons oil (optional) I usually prefer to rub the seasonings directly on the pork

Directions

---

1. Chop the onion and jalapeno (optional) and put in the bottom of the crock pot (I prefer this method because I have found that no matter what meat I'm making in crock pots, when it's directly touching the bottom it tends to cook faster than the rest of the meat).
2. In a bowl mix together dry seasonings and garlic (with or without oil)
3. Mix in half of the seasonings with the onion (and optional jalapeno) on the bottom of the crock pot
4. Squeeze one orange over the seasonings in the bottom of the crock pot. Place the squeezed orange halves on the sides of the bottom of the crock pot.
5. Prepare the pork. Cut off some of the fat, do not rinse it and rub on the rest of the seasonings mix
6. Set the pork into the crock pot.
7. Pour in the first beer, if it doesn't come close to covering the pork, add another beer.
8. Squeeze the second orange over the meat and put into the crock pot. Add additional orange juice if the pork isn't covered. If you shove the oranges down the sides, it will often raise the liquid level.
9. Cook until the pork pulls easily apart. The times vary, but in general cook on high for 1 hr to bring all of the ingredients up to a good temperature and then lower to low for 8 hrs. If you want to cook it faster, keep it on high, but monitor it.
10. When tender, pull out the carnitas and let it cool before pulling it apart with forks or bear claws
11. Often, we immediately pull off some of the pork and eat tacos for dinner and then pull the rest later when it's cooled.
12. My kids don't like the carnitas to be crispy so we skip the pan frying or oven crisping that a lot of recipes recommend, but you can pan fry the carnitas if you do like it crispy.

This recipe is versatile, pulled pork recipes with bbq sauce doesn't work in tacos, but carnitas can become bbq pork. We often mix the pork carnitas with bbq sauce and make pulled pork sandwiches, to keep dinner interesting.