Best Ever Carnitas

Yeah, you read that right. I love caritas... they are my family's favorite Mexican dish. When we lived in San Diego we used to go to this great Mexican place near our house for dinner weekly and caritas were our favorite, but alas once we moved away there were no caritas to be had. So there started our quest for the perfect caritas recipe. I have been tweaking it for about 15 years and the batch I made last night was proclaimed by my better half as "The Best" I have ever made. Thanks sweetie! I think they were damned good too, my kids agree and I hope you will too!

Caritas1 Pork Shoulder, bone in
2 tbsp. Canola oil
1 large sweet onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp dried Mexican oregano
2 bay leaves
Salt and Pepper
1 c. Orange Juice
1/2 c. Lemon juice
1/2 c. Lime juice


Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Salt and Pepper the Pork shoulder well on all sides.
In a large Dutch oven, sear the meat well on all sides over medium to medium high heat, about 5 minutes per side. This is the most important step! Don't skip it or skimp on the sear time and make sure you sear all around.... even the sides. Trust me, that golden brown crust on that meat and the bits that are in the bottom of the pan are flavoring gold!

 Now that you have that bad boy seared, remove to a plate and move onto he the aromatics.

Turn the heat down to medium, add the onions and garlic, add oregano, bay leaf, salt and pepper and sauté  until slightly translucent.

Now add the citrus juices. Now I'm not going to lie, fresh is best (and if you go fresh please add some of the zest of those beautiful fruits!) but I usually do a combination of fresh and store bought juices. I usually have fresh lemons and limes in the house so I use fresh there and orange juice from one of the great bottled brands you can pick up at the grocery store.

Return the meat to the Dutch oven. The juice should reach about a 1/3 of the way up the meat. If not you can add a bit more of any (or a combination) of the juices to get to that level. Now pop the lid on the pot and sit back and relax while the oven does the rest of the work.

The meat is ready when the bone slips out of the roast easily, this usually takes about 4 hours but cook times vary depending on the size of your roast ( I start looking at it after around 3 1/2 hours, but if you have a very large roast it can take up to 5 hours)

Once the meat is done, remove bone and shred with 2 forks, mixing the meat with all of the wonderful braising liquid. 

Now you are ready to eat! This makes great tacos, burritos, burrito bowls, or nachos but my favorite is as Enchiladas Verde.

This is a great recipe for parties because it feeds a crowd affordably (and deliciously) but it also freezes great!

Hope you give it a try and let me know what you think.

Bon Appetite!

K