Taco Truck style carnitas
Here's a very easy carnitas recipe. It's a short video (with some mistakes!) taken on my phone. I add cheese to my tacos. I think it tastes good and lets me know when to take off the pan once it melts. You can also substitute beef chuck if you want to use beef.
Ingredients_______________
- pork shoulder (bone in or boneless...whatever)
- palm sized corn tortillas- don't use flour tortillas
- Salt
- Taco seasoning
- Onion
- Cilantro
- shredded mexican blend cheese
- Hot sauce (I like tapatio)
Directions_______________
The night before- 1/2 tsp salt per lb pork + 2 tsp taco seasoning per lb pork.
- 12lbs of pork = 6 tsp salt (2 Tablespoons) + 24 tsp taco seasoning (1/2 cup)
- Rub this over the pork. Try to do it evenly over the whole roast. I missed some spots in the video. Put it in fridge overnight in aluminum tray, covered
- Dice onions and cilantro and store in fridge
- Place pork onto aluminum tray, fat side up if possible
- set oven to 275 F and put in the pork
- Go to work
- 8 hrs later take it out and peel off the fat layer and discard
- Pull meat apart and toss around with juice from tray. Don't shred it too much but spread the juice around.
- heat a frying pan on medium/high
- add a little oil to pan and add tortilla
- put cheese on tortilla, then meat, onions, cilantro, hot sauce (I forgot this in video)
- When the cheese is melted, the taco is ready.
- You can do 3-4 tacos per frying pan. (could do up to 8 at a time on stove)
Comments
Another tip is once the pork is done you can also cut up into smaller pieces and put it onto a baking tray (line it with foil first, for easy clean up) into the oven, broil for about 4-5 minutes. It gives the carnitas a nice crunchy texture. And you can just warm up the tortillas with cheese in the mean time and then just add the carnitas and toppings. Pico de Gallo is also a good salsa to put over the tacos. And for best flavor it's always good to have some lime.