Servings: 8 Prep: 30 min Cook: 2 hrs Total: 2 hrs 30 min
Latin Pulled Pork? South of the Border Porky Goodness?
I didn’t know what to call this one, but … it’s GOOD! Soft, easily shredded pork meat. It’s made with various things that are easily found around Baja, but it’s not really based on any one thing I was ever shown by anyone. Maybe it’s based off of a real thing, but … maybe not. It’s DELICIOUS, whatever its origins!
I have this stuff lying around, quite often (in the freezer, mind you). I reheat it with a little of the braising sauce to make enchiladas, tortas and quesadillas. Without much of the sauce, I’ve also been known to use the pork meat in tacos! If you add chicken stock to the pork and sauce, it’s a great soup!
Easy to make. Simply sear the meat, throw it in a pot with the ingredients, let it simmer for 2 to 2 ½ hours, remove the meat, shred it … that’s it!
Mexican-ish Shredded Pork
Print RateIngredients
- 2 tbsp light olive oil
- 1 medium onion thinly sliced
- 4 each garlic cloves minced
- 2 each pork tenderloins cut into halves and cleaned (or equivalent pork shoulder, cut into 4 large chunks)
- 2 tbsp ancho pepper powdered
- 2 tbsp cumin seed ground
- 1 tbsp coriander seed ground
- 2 each fresno chillies (like a red jalapeño) seeds removed and very thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup lime juice freshly squeezed
- salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place a medium-large soup pot on the stove, over medium heat. Make sure you have a lid.
- Add 1 tbsp of the olive oil to the pot, then sweat your onions and garlic, until translucent. Adding a little salt and pepper will help this process and give better flavor.
- Pre-heat a large sauté pan, on the stove.
- Season the pork with a mixture of ancho powder, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper.
- In a large sauté pan, add your remaining olive oil and quickly spread it around the bottom of the pan.
- Add the pork to the sauté pan and sear the outside of the pork. When one side is nice and browned, turn it 90 degrees and sear a new side. When the pork has been nicely browned on all sides, add all the pork to the onions and garlic.
- Add your fresno peppers and lime juice to the pork, onions and garlic. Stir.
- Watch the pot. When it begins to simmer, turn the heat down to a low simmer.
- Allow to simmer for roughly 2 hours, stirring and turning the pork, occasionally.
- When the pork is soft and tears easily with a fork remove the pork and cut into large bite sized chunks.
- Season the pork, to taste. Add a little more salt and perhaps a touch more lime juice (I tend to like a lot in mine).
- It depends what I'm doing. Sometimes I keep the pork separate from the sauce and veggies in the pot, but usually I mix the pork back into the veggies and either freeze it, or use it for other purposes.
- Make enchiladas!
STANDARD FTC DISCLOSURE: In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog. Please note, I only ever endorse products that are in alignment with my ideals and I believe would be of value to my readers.
* Learn More: More about this recipe and nutrition …
This meat is so good. Made the enchiladas. Going to try a Mexican Shepherd’s Pie with it. Thank you!
Ohhh … that sounds GOOD! I’ve been thinking about trying a Sheperd’s Pie, too! Tough to do without potatoes or peas, though. What makes up a Mexican Sheperd’s Pie? Inquiring minds want to know!
The topping will be 35 oz of cauliflower
16 oz pepper jack cheese, shredded
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp onion powder
1tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 cup of heavy whipping cream
8 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
Boil cauliflower, drain, press out extra water with paper towels. Add spices, cream and pepper jack cheese. Put that on top of the meat mixture and top with cheddar cheese. Bake 375 for 35 to 45 min. The original recipe came from corimalloy@ WordPress.com. I think it will be yummy with your meat.
Yep! That looks awesome! I can see me throwing a big dollop of sour cream and a handful of cilantro all over it, then eating it AND the plate. YUM! Thanks for sharing! 😀
How do you think this’ll do in a crock pot?
Hi MrsAmyLW, I think it’s a perfect recipe for a crock pot!
i noticed there’s no liquid in this recipe. does the tenderloin release some to make a sauce or is it from the onions? i wanna make this asap!! looks so good. i’ve never cooked a tenderloin before, just pork butts, and those always have TONS of fat drippings.
oops. just saw you incorporate the lime juice with it haha i thought that was for after the pork was shredded! blonde momennt.
Hi Joanna, the liquid from the vegetables and the pork is enough. It’s not really a "saucy" dish. It’s more a shredded pork. The moisture from within the ingredients is enough to get it all cooking. I hope this helps!
This was awesome! The meat was so lean but flavorful. I was surprised at how much liquid i had when it was done cooking. Probably 1.5 cups but i used 2.5 lbs of tenderloin. I made bbq sauce to mix it with but it honestly didnt need it. Still tastes better with bbq sauce though! Thats how i always have my pulled pork haha thanks for the great recipe, dj.
Joanna, yep! I think people are often surprised at how much "water" food actually contains. They see broccoli as a dry thing, but the reality is … it’s FULL of moisture. Add a bit of salt to some freshly cut broccoli and it will begin to pull the water out. Then, you can actually even steam broccoli in it’s own juices, without needing to add anything new. Fun stuff! I’m glad you liked it. This is very much a favorite of mine!
yeah, you’re so right!! i will be having this for dinner for a week!! love not having to cook dinner haha i try to make things in a huge batches because when i get home from work, the last thing i want to do is cook. i ate it with eggs tonight and it was so good.
Joanna, I do that all the time. Just made a gargantuan batch of chili, just last night. I’ll be scooping it up and freezing it, in about an hour or two. Try google’ing "OAMC" or "Once a month cooking". It’s a really fantastic system, where the bulk of foods are cooked on one day, once a month, and the rest of it is fresh foods quickly and easily peppered in throughout the month. A very efficient way to eat, while still maintaining some nice vibrant meals! 🙂
For the cumin and coriander: do you use ground spices or do you measure the amount in whole seeds and then grind them? If you grind them yourself, what are you using to grind them?
Do you buy the ancho peppers already ground or do you grind them? If you grind them how do you do it? I have whole chipotle peppers, would that be good instead?
Hi Mimi, for the ancho, I buy it already powdered. I don’t think you could really grind whole ones, unless they were INCREDIBLY dried out and even then, it would be a challenge. They tend to be a bit thick and leathery. If you have whole ones, I’d say … open it up and empty out the seeds. If you’d like, you can toast the pepper over a burner or fire for a quick moment and then soak in same warm water to loosen them up. From there, you can either slice them and add them, or puree them and add them (which would be closer to what the powder does), but … either way would be quite tasty! In regards to the spices … volumetrically, it won’t matter much, either way. That said, I do grind my own spices most of the time. Typically, I’ll use an old coffee grinder to do my grinding, but for something like nutmeg, I use a small handheld microplane. (I use it for ginger and citrus zests, as well!) I hope this helps!
Thank you DJ for answering my questions so promptly. I am going to buy the whole spices today and make this recipe this week. Thanks for your suggestions on how to use the chipotle peppers. You are quite right about them being leathery. I bought a pound of Chipotles awhile ago which I was using to flavor beans (like pinto and cranberry). I stopped making and eating various beans when I started eating low carb.
My pork is delicious and very spicy. I used ancho powder in the rub as directed and added 3 seeded and soaked chipotle peppers with the small amount of soaking liquid to the pot that it was all cooked in. The chipotles fell apart thus adding much heat to the dish. I meant to take them out, so next time I will leave them whole and unsoaked. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m glad you enjoyed this one, Mimi! It’s one of my personal favorites, without question!
Can you use chicken in place of the pork it sounds really good. Love your website
Just made it and it is very good! I highly recommend it… It didn’t take 2 hours though only 1 1/2hrs.
Michael, yep! It doesn’t need to cook as long … maybe 45 minutes, but … yep! And it’ll be awesome, too! Unknown … different pieces of meat take different periods of time. A small piece will cook more quickly. Plus, while it may have shredded at 90 minutes, it may have softened further, given another 30. At this point, it’s purely personal tastes. I’m glad you liked it! 🙂
What size tenderloins do you use?
I’m wondering what I could use in place of dried ancho peppers, until I can get my hands on some?
Hi Unknown, sorry for the delay, I’ve been moving … In any event, the weights are listed along with the ingredients. I don’t know if that is a sufficient answer, though … <br /><br />
Rachel, you could go without … or perhaps a small chopped chipotle? Or 2 tbsp of dried powdered New Mexico Chile? Each variation is going to add a different character to it, but none are particularly better or worse than the other … just different accents … I hope that helps!
could not find Fresno peppers, so i seeded and diced some Anaheim peppers. this recipe is amazing. I used spinach and made your braised greens as a side dish
—Reply posted by DJ on 4/17/2015
Sounds like a lovely meal! Glad I’m helping inspire! 🙂
This recipe is a keeper! Couldn’t find fresno chilis so used anaheim peppers and the flavor was amazing. You should definitely give this one a try.
—Reply posted by DJ on 4/19/2015
Will do! 😉