A simple recipe for delicious Crockpot Pork Carnitas! This Mexican classic comes together in no time using flavorful pork butt, spices, onion, oranges, and beer! With a special trick to get your carnitas tasting better than what you get at a restaurant! Perfect for filling tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and more!
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Let’s Make Easy Pork Carnitas in the Slow Cooker
The best recipes in my opinion are ones that are simple to make, delicious, and can be stretched into multiple meals AND THIS ONE DOES IT ALL!
These Crockpot Carnitas are:
- Easy to make. Basically a dump and go slow cooker recipe!
- Super flavorful, a recipe the WHOLE FAMILY will devour.
- It is a large recipe that keeps really well so it is perfect for stretching into multiple meals!
I love these Carnitas so much in fact that I am working on a whole recipe series of what to make with your Leftover Carnitas!
What you need to make Easy Crockpot Carnitas:
Equipment you need:
- Slow Cooker/Crockpot
- Standard Kitchen Tools (Cutting Board, Knife, Fork, Measuring Spoons)
- Oven
- Sheet Pan/Tray
Ingredients you need:
- Pork Butt: Around 4 pounds & preferably boneless, also called a Boston Butt. It is actually the cut of pork that comes from the upper part of the front shoulder. It is the cut of pork typically used for making pulled pork.
- Onion: Diced, a sweet, yellow, or white variety will work.
- Spices: Chipotle Chili Powder, Dried Oregano, Cumin, and Salt. NOTE: The Chipotle Chili Powder is different from just normal Chili powder, most big brands like McCormick Spices do carry the Chipotle variety, known to be more smoky and slightly more subtle.
- Orange: Just 1 orange, a navel variety works best but any standard size orange will work. You will be using the zest and the juice.
- Blue Moon Beer: Or similar beer, Blue Moon is a Belgian-style Witbier AKA a Wheat Ale, so look for something similar if you can’t find Blue Moon. You will just need one bottle for this recipe.
How to make Crockpot Carnitas Recipe:
Carefully cut the pork butt into 4 even pieces. Leave any fat pieces on, this adds to the flavor and the fat can be picked off when it is time to pull the pork. I cut the pork but into pieces to allow more flavor soak into the meat.
Transfer pork pieces to the crock. Add the diced onion, chipotle chili powder, oregano, cumin, and salt over top pork.
Zest entire orange over top the spices and juice the entire orange into the crockpot.
Now slowly pour the beer overtop the crockpot contents.
Cover the crockpot and set to LOW for 6 to 8 hours or HIGH for 4 hours. Cooking times will vary depending on size of meat and equipment used.
Once the pork is done in the crockpot (able to be easily pulled apart) there is one last step that is a game changer for making these carnitas better than a restaurant. You will shred the pork and then it will be crisped up in the oven.
So set your oven to BROIL. Transfer all the pork to a sheet pan. Pull/shread pork apart and spread over the entire sheet pan.
Measure out about 1/4 cup of the liquid from the crockpot and sprinkle evenly over the pulled pork.
Transfer to the middle rack of the oven and broil 5 to 6 minutes until the pork gets nice and crispy edges.
Serve immediately. Suggested serving, for delicious tacos serve with warm tortillas, queso fresco cheese, cilantro, and red onions.
If you like this recipe you might like:
- Slow Cooker Chipotle Pineapple Carnitas
- Crockpot Rotisserie Chicken
- Crockpot Clean Eating BBQ Pulled Chicken
- Slow Cooker Chicken Shawarma
- Crockpot Bolognese
Have Leftover Carnitas?? Here are some great recipe ideas on how to use up those leftovers:
Need Chipotle Chili Powder? Order some here:
Crockpot Carnitas
A simple recipe for delicious Crockpot Pork Carnitas! This Mexican classic comes together in no time using flavorful pork butt, spices, onion, oranges, and blue moon beer! With a special trick to get your carnitas tasting better than what you get at a restaurant! Perfect for filling tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and more!
Ingredients
- 4 pounds pork butt
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 tablespoon chipotle chili powder
- 2 teaspoons oregano
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 large orange
- 1 (12oz) Blue Moon or similar wheat beer
Instructions
- Carefully cut pork butt into 4 even pieces. Transfer pork pieces to the crock. Add onion, chipolte chili powder, oregano, cumin, and salt over top pork. Zest entire orange over top the spices and juice the entire orange into the crockpot. Slowly pour the beer overtop the crockpot contents. Cover the crockpot and set to LOW for 7 to 8 hours or HIGH for 4 hours.
- Set oven to BROIL. Once pork is done (able to be easily pulled apart) transfer all the pork to a sheet pan. Pull pork apart and spread over the entire sheet pan. Measure out about 1/4 cup of liquid from the crockpot and sprinkle evenly over the pulled pork. Transfer to the middle rack of the oven and broil 5 to 6 minutes until the pork gets nice and crispy edges.
- Serve immediately. Suggested serving, for delicious tacos serve with warm tortillas, queso fresco cheese, cilantro, and red onions.
Notes
Chipotle Chili Powder is different than plain Chili Powder, use Chipotle Chili Powder in this recipe.
If you skip broiling in the oven I do find that the carnitas are really wet and mushy which isn't great, so don't skip the broiling step!
While I highly suggest beer for this recipe, if you don't have beer in your house you can use broth instead.
The Pork Butt cut is also referred to as a Boston Butt, they are the same thing. This cut of meat sometimes will contain a bone, I recommend a boneless cut.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
8Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 632Total Fat: 43gSaturated Fat: 16gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 23gCholesterol: 195mgSodium: 447mgCarbohydrates: 5gFiber: 1gSugar: 3gProtein: 53g
Nutritional data is automated, final nutritional information will depend on ingredients used and any changes made.
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Peace & Love
Lauren, The Schmidty Wife
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At what temp do you broil the meat after pulling from crockpot?
If you have broil options you will want to broil on High.
Fabulous recipe. Did think it needed a bit of salt and sprinkled just a bit when I broiled the shredded pork. Served on street-size tortillas, with chopped white onions, sliced fresh jalapeños, cilantro, cotijo cheese and fresh salsa de gallo. Wonderful! Thank you!
This carnitas recipe was so good and easy! I passed the recipe onto my mom and she loved it too. We’ve both made it again! Crisping it at the end really makes all the difference. Thank you.
This was lacking a lot of flavor. I added a lot of salt and other seasonings at the end just to make up for it.
I’ve made this for my family several times and it’s so yummy! We are having a party this weekend and will have 24 people, 10 adults & 13 kids. I am trying to figure out how much to make….HELP!!!
If you are not serving a lot of other options and this is it I would probably say maybe triple, although if you are having other options with it or a lot of sides I would probably say to double the recipe.
Hi! This was delicious. You think I can freeze the leftovers
Yes you can freeze the leftovers!
Hi, I’m curious if I can use a frozen pork butt instead? I’m trying to find something for dinner tonight and would LOVE to make this.
Also, instead of a chipotle chili powder, would I be able to add some adobo peppers and regular chili powder? I also use smoked paprika for that smokey flavor.
Hi, I wouldn’t recommend cooking from frozen, I would be afraid that the pork would be able to come up to temperature fast enough to ensure that it is safe to eat. I would recommend thawing it at least most of the way in the fridge overnight. As for the substitute I would think that a mixture of adobo pepper and chili powder would be fantastic in this as well as a dash of smoky paprika!
Any idea how long I should cook this in an instant pot pressure cooker?
To be honest I am not 100% sure because I haven’t tried it but I would guess you would want to cook it under high pressure for 25 to 30 minutes.
Tried this excellent recipe & it was over the moon delicious. I was skeptical of the Blue Moon beer because on its own it wasn’t my cup of tea. However when everything was done it came to together like magic. Everyone loved it.
Couldn’t get a boneless pork butt so I puchased on with the bone then just the bone out. Worked like a charm & couldn’t be any easier to prepare. Thanks for the delicious recipe
Thanks so much Beverly!