Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas
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The easiest carnitas you will ever make right in the crockpot, cooked low and slow for the most amazing fall-apart tender pork goodness!
Have you joined The Walking Dead fan club yet? The season premier is on Sunday night and they’ve been playing every single episode from start to finish on AMC for this premier. And even though I’ve already watched all the episodes, I’m still hooked.
There’s just something about creepy zombies that leaves you in front of the tv. That and Norman Reedus, his poncho, and his bow and arrow. But I digress. Zombies or not, it’s officially fall and the slow cooker is being put to very good use in these epic carnitas. After all, you can’t go wrong when you let this baby cook in all its glory for 8 hours.
You can even prep everything the night before and put it in the slow cooker right before leaving for work. And when you get home, you’ll have the most tender, most juicy pulled pork ever. Although I highly recommend finishing this under the broiler, letting these babies get nicely caramelized.
I should also mention that this recipe creates enough to feed an army so be prepared to have tacos, quesadillas and burritos all week long!
Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 2 teaspoons salt, or more, to taste
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 4 pound pork shoulder, excess fat trimmed
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled
- 2 onions, quartered
- ½ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- ¼ cup freshly squeezed lime juice
Equipment
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper. Season pork shoulder with spice mixture, rubbing in thoroughly on all sides.
- Place garlic, onions, orange juice, lime juice and seasoned pork shoulder into a 6-qt slow cooker. Cover and cook on low heat for 8 hours or high for 4-5 hours.
- Remove pork shoulder from the slow cooker and shred the meat before returning to the pot with the juices; season with salt and pepper, to taste, if needed. Cover and keep warm for an additional 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to broil. Place carnitas onto a baking sheet and broil until crisp and crusted, about 3-4 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Video
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I’ve made this recipe countless times from start to finish. Always delicious, always flavorful! We typically make into tacos but I’ve also paired with a fried egg and fresh salsa for a protein packed breakfast. This time I used a 7lb cut of meat and am excited to freeze some for enjoyment later. Don’t keep reading reviews, recipe is excellent as is!
Did you change the cooking time using the bigger cut of meat?
These are the best carnitas! I make them exactly as written and they are wonderful and easy. Mine always take longer to cook, so I start them the day before I want to eat them and just cook them however long it takes for them to easily shred. It makes enough to feed an army, so I freeze multiple portions and broil when I defrost. Delicious! Making them for the holidays!
I cook these all day and all night, shred and toast in the morning. I make these every year for my daughters birthday party. It is a BIG hit.
This recipe is perfect! I had an 8lb pork butt and doubled everything. It barely fit in my crockpot, but came out amazing! I did need to add some salt to taste, but that was easy enough. I brought it to feed tacos to a group and everyone asked for the recipe. I didn’t even do the broiling step, so if you don’t have time for that, know that you’ll just have extra saucy, delicious carnitas.
I love that this recipe doesn’t call for beer, because I’ve tried others that do and enjoyed them, but we don’t usually have beer on hand.
I enjoyed the flavors so much that I’m trying the ingredients with some frozen chicken thighs in my instant pot right now. How bad could it be, right? Provided I cook them long enough of course…
Thank you for this gem!
Hiii with doubling your meat, how long did you end up cooking it for?
I’m don’t remember exactly, but I know it wasn’t quite done (part of it didn’t quite shred). I think maybe 8.5/9 hours… I had to bring it for a group and couldn’t wait.
Depending on your slow cooker, I’m guessing 9-10 hours and check for easy shredding. You can also Google around for other recipes that use an 8 lb piece of meat and just borrow the cooking time.
I made this with two pork tenderloins in the instant pot. I didn’t change any of the ingredients. I pressure cooked it for an hour with a natural release. The tenderloin was falling apart. I removed it from the pot and used an immersion blender on the remaining ingredients. I then replaced the meat. It was delish!!
As always your recipes are absolutely amazing! This is my go to recipe for carnitas and it never fails me! Thank you!!
8 hours seems like a long time! but wow that looks so delicious. I give it 5 stars because of how tasty that looks. Hope when I try it, it ends up being the same.
Delish! We will be making this again!
Thank you for this recipe! I’ve used several others from Damn Delicious and each one is fabulous! We’ve made these many times. In fact, I just put some in the crock pot this morning. My family likes a little heat, so I add 3 fresh jalapeños to the crock pot. I serve the meat on tortillas with fresh pico de gallo, cilantro, queso fresco and a lime wedges. Absolutely amazing!!!
Could the meat be frozen after cooking?
I’ve got this in the crockpot as we speak! I’m sure it’ll be delicious. I love your recipes! I read your post and saw how you like The Walking Dead….I was an Alexandrian and worked on the show for a few years. 🙂
I used a 2 lb Pork Loin and halved the ingredients except the onion, lime and orange these ingredients truly are the flavors of Carnitas. I did not add chili pepper I’ve been making this for years and no recipe ever called for it before. I cubed the pork loin and shook it up with the seasonings to cover thoroughly then cooked it in the crock pot on high for 4 hours and low for 1 hour, I shredded all the meat and returned it to the crock pot on low for 1 hour (we were not ready to eat) it had absorbed most of the liquid by now so I pulled it out, spread it out on a cookie sheet and put it under the broiler for 5 minutes. I served it with Tortilla’s, Mexican crumble cheese, lime & cilantro, absolutely delicious. I’ll use the leftovers for a quesadilla, should be amazingly good!
Our carnitas turned out REALLY tender and juicy. We didn’t have oranges or lime so we just used some chicken broth. It was still yummy.
Great! We halved the recipe and will be using leftovers for quesadillas this week!
This is amazing! I used a 19lb pork butt from Costco and put everything in times 5! (Except the onions. I think I only had six so I did that).
A-mazing!
I use Damn Delicious for a lot of recipes. My favorite one is the Carne Asada recipe with flank steak. Always a winner with company and with my five kids. It’s a discipline not to eat the steak while I’m cutting it.
Hi Hanna! I too purchased a very large Pork butt from Costco. Did you cut it up to fit in your crock pot? Or did you cook it in two pots? We are making this for Christmas and I don’t want to mess it up.
So easy and delicious. I made this last week and here I am making it again this week. The day after I made this I decided to just warm them up on my griddle since it was just for me, and they tasted even more authentic! When my husband tried them he said the same thing. This was an absolute winner in our house!
Made Carnitas for my first holiday get together. This recipe is a winner! I followed the recipe using the 8 hour slow and low cook. The meat was so tender and succulent! The guests absolutely enjoyed this delicious dish! I will definitely make this again and again! Mele Kalikimaka! Merry Christmas from Hawaii!
This is delicious!! My family asks for it all the time now!
THIS is in our forever recipe box of tricks! My boyfriend has been making this recipe since we discovered it about a year ago… at least over a half dozen times.. tonight is my turn to try my hand at it. DEFINITELY do the broiler finish… it takes this to the next level and you WON’T be disappointed! Just be careful, I really like the charred caramelized bits and once we went a bit too long under the broiler. Though it didn’t burn, it did seem to somewhat dry out this amazing meat, stripping it of some of the flavor we love!
Made for Sunday dinner after church. Used pork steaks and cooked 6 hrs in crock pot. Put in broiler while I changed clothes and got out some precooked beans. Served with corn and flour tortillas, cheese, salsa and sour cream. Easy and fast! Through with dinner and dishes before 1 pm.
I followed this exact recipe. I just increased the ingredients because the pork shoulder was 7lb. with bone-in. It was so easy and the results were delicious, juicy and tender meat. Browning it in the broiler was a great idea, better than frying it in oil. I browned about 1/2 of it and will be using the other 1/2 for pulled pork sliders. Thank you for the recipe!