Crockpot Pork Carnitas

A friend in my mom's group is a major fan of her crock pot. If it can be made in a crock pot, I bet she's done it. I'm with her on the crock pot love; it cuts down a lot of time in the kitchen, allowing me more time to keep my kids from burning the house down. Win.

This is her recipe, with a few tweaks (mostly due to my pantry constraints). My husband loved it, and I'm going to jump on the bandwagon there too. I left it mild in case my kids would actually eat some, but if it were just my husband and I, I would have kicked it up a few notches. 

The biggest surprise from cooking this was how amazing the onions turned out. Perfect. 

If you are like me, and using an American crock pot without a converter on lower voltage Japanese plug-ins, you may find you only cook on high. 

Crockpot Pork Carnitas

Ingredients:

1 onion, thinly sliced 

2-3 T extra virgin olive oil 

3-4 lb pork tenderloin or roast

1 can beef broth

1/2 t cumin

1/2 t garlic powder

1/2 t dried oregano

1/2 t smoked paprika

1 t chili powder

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper 

Put the onions in the bottom of the pot. Drizzle with the oil, then add the roast. Add the spices (salt and pepper the roast to taste). Cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-5. Or in my situation (see above), cook on high for 6-7 hours. 

This is the roast fully cooked. Shred it with two forks. Add the meat back to the onion and broth mix and cook an additional 30 minutes or so. 

Here's what the onions look like after the initial cook. 

Final product. YUM. You can maybe imagine how good it made the house smell. 

There are probably a thousand ways to serve this up. I made tacos by frying some corn tortillas and serving with beans, shredded cabbage, tomato, salsa, and sour cream.