Crispy Carnitas Tacos with Pickled Onions and Cilantro
Per serving 969 kcal · 79g protein · 127g carbs · 31g fat
Ingredients
- 1¼ lb pork shoulder, cut into 2-inch chunks
- 1 tsp salt, divided
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced
- ½ cup white vinegar
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 8 small tortillas
- Small handful fresh cilantro
Steps
- Season the pork chunks with ½ tsp of the salt and the black pepper.
- Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high. Working in batches, brown the pork on all sides, 3–4 minutes per side. Set aside.
- Return all the pork to the pot. Add the garlic, cumin, oregano, bay leaf, and chicken broth. Bring to a simmer, cover, and braise in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 2 hours, until the pork is very tender and falling apart.
- While the pork cooks, make the pickled onions: put the sliced onion in a bowl. Heat the vinegar with the sugar and the remaining ½ tsp salt until dissolved, then pour over the onion. Let sit at room temperature at least 30 minutes.
- Shred the pork with two forks. Strain the cooking liquid and discard the bay leaf. Return ¼ cup of the liquid to the pork, then crisp it in a cast iron skillet over medium-high, stirring often, until golden and crispy at the edges, 8–10 minutes.
- Warm the tortillas in a dry skillet or over a flame until pliable, about 30 seconds a side. Divide the pork among them and top with pickled onions and cilantro. Serve right away.
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This is a weekend dish that pays you back all week. Pork shoulder braises low and slow until it falls apart, then gets crisped in a hot skillet so the edges go golden and crackly — the part that makes carnitas worth doing yourself.
The pickled onions come together while the pork cooks, so by the time you're warming tortillas there's nothing left but assembly. Two servings now, and the carnitas only get better the next day.
Leftovers
- Store the carnitas and pickled onions separately in airtight containers in the fridge for up to 3 days.
- Reheat the pork in a cast iron skillet over medium with a splash of water, stirring, until crispy again — about 5 minutes.
- Warm fresh tortillas just before serving, and add the onions and cilantro at the end so nothing goes soggy.
This is the kind of dinner Eatsë hands you without the thinking: it picks the week's meals, scales each recipe to your household, and builds the grocery list by aisle. This one just happened to be too good not to write down.
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