Okay, this is a weird one. The ingredients sound strange, but the end result is nothing short of amazing! If you’ve ever had them in a restaurant, this recipe will taste very familiar. The bonus is that you can make this in a crock pot, as the meat should be braised (slow cooked, in some liquid.)

The recipe that I started with, I found standing in line at the grocery store. Those smarties placed a board with the recipe above an open cooler with a bunch of roasts that were SUCH a good deal that it was too hard to resist. Plus, I really like carnitas and had not had it in a while.

Carnitas Tacos

Ingredients: 

3 1/2 pound pork butt

1 – 12oz can cola

1 onion, peeled and quartered

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 orange

2 tablespoons lime juice

2 teaspoons dried cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 bay leaves

Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions:

1) Place ingredients in crock pot, cover with spices, lime juice, and cola. Cut orange and squeeze orange and place into crock pot. Cook on high 4-5 hours.

2) Once pork is cooked tender, strain out solids, and place pork on cutting board [to rest] and pour liquid into a medium pot to simmer for 15 minutes, or until reduced to 1 1/2 cups.

3) Preheat broiler, trim fat from pork and discard. Cut pork into 1 inch chunks. Mix with reduced liquid and broil on foil lined baking sheet in center rack 5-10 minutes, until browned.

4) Serve hot with your favorite taco fixings.

Serves 8

 

* Some things I did differently were to put the onion and garlic under the pork (to keep the meat off the direct heat source,) use a small lime instead of the lime juice (cut and squeezed onto the meat, like the orange,) shredded the pork (instead of cutting it into chunks,) and skipped the final broiler stage (but mixed the liquid with the meat before serving) as we were too hungry from the smells to wait any longer. Seriously, you have to try this!