Mexican
Pork Carnitas
Pork Carnitas is Mexican home cooking, eaten at dinner. On the plate it is the dish at the centre. Below is what usually sits beside it, what it does and does not contain, and what else to cook once you have made it.
Ingredients
- 3 lb pork shoulder
- 1 orange
- 2 limes
- 1 onion
- 6 garlic cloves
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 tbsp neutral oil
- 12 corn tortillas
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- 1 tsp salt
How to cook it
- Heat the oven to 300F. Season the pork generously with salt, cumin, and oregano.
- Combine the pork, orange juice, lime juice, onion, garlic, and bay leaves in a Dutch oven with 1 cup water.
- Cover and braise until fork-tender, about 2.5 hours.
- Shred the pork, then spread it on a sheet pan with some of the cooking juices.
- Broil until the edges are crisp and caramelized, about 8 minutes.
- Serve on warm corn tortillas with chopped onion and cilantro.
Safe at your table
Dinejot tracks ten allergens and tags every one of them by hand. Pork Carnitas carries none of them. That is a checked answer rather than an ingredient list nobody read.
| Allergen | In this dish | Cook this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Peanuts | No | |
| Tree nuts | No | |
| Dairy | No | |
| Gluten | No | |
| Shellfish | No | |
| Eggs | No | |
| Soy | No | |
| Fish | No | |
| Sesame | No | |
| Coconut | No |
These tags are set by a person rather than inferred from an ingredient list, and they describe the recipe as written here. Read the labels on whatever you actually buy.
What it brings to the plate
Bands, not numbers. Dinejot does not weigh anybody's food, so it says light, moderate or hearty and stops there. This dish was read and set by hand.
- Calorie band
- Hearty
- Protein
- High
- Protein quality
- Complete
- Food groups it covers
- Grains, Vegetables, and Meat or fish
- How this was set
- Hand audited
When to cook it
Pork Carnitas takes about 180 minutes from a cold stove to the table, and the cooking itself is a fair bit of work. It is eaten at dinner. Nothing in the calendar rules it out, so it is a year round dish.
More to cook
Cooked from the same things
Other dishes built on pork, tortilla, orange, and onion.
From the same kitchens
More cooking from the United States.
Does the same job on the plate
Swap any of these in when you want a meal the same shape.
Cook this with your whole family
Dinejot plans breakfast, lunch and dinner as whole plates, built around the cooking you call home and filtered for the allergies at your table.
Meal suggestions support your goals. They are not medical advice. Please ask your doctor about your family's health needs.