Slow-Cooked Carnitas Taco Stacks Couldn't Be Easier

Making carnitas can be a bit of a time-consuming hassle, but that goes out the window when you use a slow cooker. Twisted's near-effortless recipe for the classic Mexican preparation is nothing but good news for those of us who don’t have a killer carnitas restaurant nearby! 

Gather the ingredients, throw them into the slow cooker, and in a few hours you’ve got one of the tastiest and most tender dishes you’ll ever try. Plus, it’s easy to tweak the dish to your tastebuds -- add more spice, a different cheese, some guac, even switch the pork out for shredded chicken. It's totally up to you. 

Carnitas Taco Stacks


Yield: 2 stacks, feeds 6-8

INGREDIENTS:
For the pork:
  • Pork Shoulder joint, off the bone, skinned and trimmed of fat (About 1.6-2kg)
  • 1 medium-sized red onion, roughly chopped
  • 3 bay leaves
  • A small stick of cinnamon 
  • 1/2 tbsp cumin powder
  • 1/2 tbsp oregano
  • 200ml orange juice
  • 1/2 tbsp salt
  • 1/2 tbsp black pepper, ground
For the taco stack:
  • A bunch of cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters, to serve
  • 1 ripe Haas avocado, diced, to serve
  • A few sprigs of coriander, to serve
  • 2 tins of sweetcorn
  • 8 small white flour tortillas
  • 400g cheddar, red Leicester, or another semi-hard cheese that you fancy, grated
  • 100ml sour cream, to serve
  • Lime wedges, cut from 1 ripe lime, to serve
DIRECTIONS:
  • Grab your slow cooker. Pop all of the ingredients in said cooker, throw on the lid and crank it up to high. Cook for 4+ hours, basting or turning the pork once or twice if you can be bothered. If you are worried about the amount of liquid you can top it up with a little water (or more orange juice).
  • While the pork is cooking, pop some sweetcorn in a baking dish with a little oil and roast at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes, or until nicely caramelized and charred in places.
  • After the allotted time the pork should be fork tender, if not - give it a little longer. Bring out the pork and shred with two forks in a bowl. It's nice to leave a few larger bits of pork in the carnitas, so don't worry too much about shredding it too finely.
  • Add a ladle of the cooking liquor, mix through, then get ready to stack! At this stage, you can use the pork in any which way you like. Great for enchiladas, putting into a Mexican style lasagne, topping burgers...the opportunities are endless. It will also keep well in the fridge for 3 days or so, or the freezer for longer!
  • Warm through your tortillas. Pop one down on a plate/ovenproof baking dish. Top with a good layer of pork (about a 1/2 an inch thick), a few diced tomatoes, some roasted sweetcorn kernels, and a healthy handful of grated cheese. Top with another tortilla then repeat the process until you have 3 layers of pork and a fourth tortilla on top.
  • Make another stack if cooking for more people. Bake the stack(s) in the oven for 10 or so minutes at 400oF, or until the cheese is nice and melted inside. Don't let the tortillas color too much.
  • Bring out, top with avocado, tomato, sour cream and coriander, squeeze over some limes, and get involved! Happy days!
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