Slow Cooker Carnitas
These slow cooker carnitas are an easy and delicious one-pot dish! With crispy pulled pork shoulder, citrus, and fresh herbs, this dish is packed with flavor for tacos, bowls, and more.
Featured review
“Really good and easy base for a ton of meals!” – Timothy
Why you’ll love this slow cooker chicken and broccoli
Carnitas is a Mexican dish made with slow-cooked pork shoulder, simmered with fresh citrus, herbs, and spices until tender and falling apart. This is one of the staple dishes in my family that I’ve made for years, and will always keep coming back to!
Here’s why you’re going to love this recipe…
- Quick and easy! This recipe is so hands-off, with the slow cooker doing most of the work.
- Total crowd pleaser. This is the main dish that I always default to for when we have company! I set up a bar with rice, quick-pickled onions, beans, and more so my guests can build their own bowl, and it’s always a huge hit.
- Meal prep magic. This recipe is perfect for meal prep! I love making it on a Sunday and reheating it with various dishes throughout the week.
- Versatile for so many different dishes. It is so perfect for serving with tacos, nachos, burrito bowls, and more!
My take on carnitas is made in the slow cooker without any nightshade spices to make it AIP-friendly.
Recipe Ingredients
- Pork shoulder. You can either use pork shoulder with a bone, or without! Pork with a bone will have some more flavor, but you, of course, have to remove the bone and account for the weight from the bone.
- Orange and lime juice. I prefer to use fresh juice, but you can also use storebought juice.
- Onion and garlic.
- Coconut sugar, oregano, cilantro, salt and pepper.
How to make slow cooker carnitas
Here are the simple steps, with photos, to make this recipe. Find full instructions in the recipe card.
Step one. Make the spice rub.
Step two. Add the dry rub to the pork shoulder.
Step three. Slow cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-5 hours.
Step four. Once cooked, remove the bay leaves an shred the pork.
Step five. Crisp the carnitas in the oven!
Michelle’s Tips & Tricks
- Trim the excess fat. If you have an excessively fatty pork shoulder, I suggest trimming some of the fat so you’re not chewing on fat pieces. However, you do want to leave a few small fatty spots to ensure the pork shoulder has flavor!
- Use fresh juice. Fresh orange and lime juice will always have the most flavor! But if you do use store-bought juice, use about 1/2 cup of orange juice and about 1/4 cup lime juice.
- Don’t skip crisp! This is key for the best texture and flavor! You’ll only need about 10 minutes in the oven.
Recipe FAQS
The best cut to use for carnitas is pork shoulder! Boston butt is another good option.
I love using the slow cooker for this recipe. However, you likely can also make this recipe in the instant pot by cooking it on high pressure at around 90 minutes.
How can you serve carnitas?
Carnitas are so great for adding to a variety of meals! Here are some ideas for how you can eat them…
- Burrito bowls. This recipe would be perfect with rice, instant pot refried beans, lettuce, and toppings!
- Nachos. I love these plantain carnitas nachos.
- In a breakfast hash. My mexican breakfast skillet would be great with carnitas instead of ground beef.
- Tacos. I like making these tacos topped with quick-pickled onions.
More Recipes to Try
Slow Cooker Carnitas
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Ingredients
- 1 tbsp coconut sugar,
- 1 tbsp dried cilantro
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper, omit for AIP
- 3 lb pork shoulder, excess fat trimmed, see notes
- 2 oranges
- 2 limes, halved
- ½ yellow onion, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tbsp Fresh cilantro for garnish
Instructions
- Combine the coconut sugar, cilantro, oregano, salt and pepper (plus other seasoning if using) to create a dry rub. Rub the pork shoulder until evenly coated. Add to the bottom of a slow cooker.
- Squeeze the juice of orange and limes over the pork shoulder. Add the onion, garlic and bay leaves.
- Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-5 hours.
- Once cooked, discard the bay leaves. Carefully shred the pork with two forks until fully shredded.
- Preheat the oven to 400 F and add the shredded pork to a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spoon 3-4 spoonfuls of the cooking liquid over the pork shoulder. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, or until crisped to your liking!
- Serve topped with cilantro and additional lime wedges if desired.
Notes
Delicious and super easy!
Flavors smell great but at 4 hours on high in a crock pot my pork shoulder was tough and pink still.
I’ve made this three times, the first time I followed it as written for AIP and found it incredibly bitter. My gut told me that the spent citrus was likely the offender, so the second time I made it, but discard the fruit after it was squeezed and it was great! The third time was in an instant pot, and this will likely be my go to for speed and how tender the meat was. I cut the pork into 4″ chunks, then rubbed with the seasoning, added 1 cup of chicken bone broth to the pot, I still discarded the spent fruit, cooked on high pressure for 40 minutes, 15 minute natural release then quick release (90 minutes as suggested in the article would have likely been fine if I left the pork butt whole, but I liked that there was more meat coated in the seasonings but breaking it down). This method gave me a lot of juice to work with, and I’ve found my favorite way to finish it to get the crispy bits is letting it cook on the stove in a cast iron or stainless pain to concentrate all that yummy juice and get the delicious crispy bits along the way. If you’re not into that, I bet it would work without the cup of broth and then you can eat it straight away or put under the broiler. Another winner recipe, I couldn’t do AIP without you!
Yum! Thank you so much!!
I’ve made this twice now, the first time I followed it exactly for AIP, and found that it was bitter, I probably had cruddy fruit. So the second time I got all the juices out and didn’t add the rinds and it was perfection. My husband and I love these carnitas! Thanks for another amazing AIP recipe!
Yay, so glad you enjoyed!!
I’m sorry if I could give this zero stars I would. Followed the recipe to a tee and it came out bitter and super acidic. What to do differently? 50 % less fruit and more salt, garlic and some heat-spice. Cayenne, something! This was an epic fail. The only thing salvageable was the very interior of the pork. Beware this recipe needs some help.
Sorry, you didn’t like it. The reason that this doesn’t have cayenne, heat, or spice is because it’s an AIP recipe which means it’s nightshade-free. I always develop my recipes without nightshades and make them an optional addition.
So easy, really delicious. The pickled onions are a must with this one, gives an extra zing of flavor. This will go into our family’s rotation!
Thank you so much!!
Can I make this with skinless boneless chicken thighs? I can do Instant pot or slow cooker. Do you prefer one more than the other? Thank you!
I haven’t tried that, but it would take some modifying for sure since chicken cooks differently than pork. You could probably make it work for either or, you’d just need to add chicken broth as and adjust the cooking time for chicken specifically 🙂
These are amazing! I made these when we had friends come over (they’re not aip) and they loved it as much as we did! They had tacos. We put it on top of cauliflower rice and topped it with aip guacamole. It is one of my go to recipes now!
YUMMMMM!!! This is amazing!! There is abundant flavor and it is easy to use a cheaper cut of pork, which is always helpful to stretch the budget. I love the combination of fresh orange and lime juice! Genius!! I made the AIP version and it is the absolute best and so very versatile- with siete tortillas, with fajita veggies, or just cauliflower or regular rice!! Fantastic!! DO try this one!!
Love this recipe! I add white basaltic vinegar to my pork as it’s being served. As close as I can get to North Carolina pulled pork!
YUM!
This is a winner in our house! Question; have you done this in the instant pot? If so, for how long?
Thank you, Lauren!! I would think 40-60 minutes would be the right time 🙂
AMAZING!!! Even my non-AIP eater family gobbled it up!
YAY! Thank you so much Chrissy!
You’re welcome! Keep up the great work!
Any chance this could be made with chicken thighs or a chunk of beef? My husband doesn’t tolerate pork well, but the flavour sounds amazing!
i’m not seeing when the onion goes in or how it’s prepared…please help–I’m making this for guests tomorrow! 🙂
Sorry about that! Just updated 🙂 It’s just chopped and goes straight into the slow cooker to give the carnitas flavor.
Thank you for your quick response! I’m excited to try this recipe:)
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