Leftover Pork Carnitas Recipe

If you want to spread your slow cooker pulled pork further, then here's a tasty, delicious way to make leftover pork carnitas!

This quick meal is a great recipe that's full of tasty Mexican spices, chopped salad, and a zesty lime sour cream spooned into soft tortillas.

We hate food waste in our house. And these easy pork carnitas are perfect any day of the year using leftover meat, fresh toppings, and sour cream in warm tortillas.

Recently, we had some leftovers from my slow cooker 2-ingredient pulled pork.

And instead of having the same pulled pork sandwiches, I wanted to have some fun making this super easy leftover pulled pork carnitas recipe.

Jump to:

• ✔️ Why Carnitas?
• 🛒 Ingredients
• 🔪Equipment
• 📋 Instructions
• 👩‍🍳 Substitutions
• ⚖️ Variations
• ❄️ Storage
• 💡Top Tips
• ❓FAQ
• ➕ More Leftover Pork Recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

✔️ Why Carnitas?

Did you know that this traditional Mexican dish means "little meats" in Spanish? Anyway, here's why you'll love this delicious meal!

• These are super easy slow cooker pork carnitas
• Using leftover pork tenderloin, it's a quick dinner that's ready in 10 minutes
• This traditional Mexican dish can be personalised many different ways
• An inexpensive easy meal using oddments
• Easy recipe to make keto by substituting flour tortillas
• Making it is quicker than ordering from a menu!

🛒 Ingredients

Leftover shredded pork - we used leftover pork loin already cooked in BBQ sauce for our main ingredient. But you could use other juicy pork, such as Boston butt roast, pork shoulder, or any other leftover roast pork mixed with my coca-cola BBQ sauce. Alternatively, any meat mixture will work, or even vegetarian mince or a mix of lentils and rice.

Corn tortillas - we prefer eating our leftover carnitas recipes soft dough as it's easy to manipulate with your hands and eat like a wrap. Alternatively, you could make leftover pulled pork tacos or smother tortilla chips and bake with pork butt on top, then add your favorite toppings.

Black beans - this native ingredient is cheap and readily available in South America and bulks up this leftover pulled pork carnitas recipe while also adding fibre

Smoked paprika - this Mexican spice adds a delicate, smokey taste to the meat

Chilli - this recipe uses mild chili powder and a small pinch of chilli flakes cooked in oil before stirring in the meat.

Avocado - cubes of this native fruit are a must in carnitas. You could mash it instead and mix it into the salad for a chunky guacamole, but a ripe avocado will add a little mush anyway when mixed with diced tomatoes, lime, and oil.

Tomatoes - diced juicy tomatoes really loosens up the salad topping to naturally create a dressing. It would be much drier without them.

Onion - this recipe uses diced white onions, but alternatively you could use red onions for more colour and sweetness.

Red pepper - adds some crunch, sweet flavor and extra vitamins

Coriander - don't skip this fresh herb! It's the best part when eaten with lime, salt and all of the fresh salad flavours.

Garlic - enriches the flavour of the pulled pork by toasting in olive oil over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes

Lime - this is vital for making it a tasty recipe. The zest and half the lime juice is used to flavour the sour cream and the other half of the juice creates a salad dressing.

Kosher salt and pepper - these are to enhance the flavours of the salad the limed sour cream. It isn't used in the pork as it is already seasoned from my previous recipe.

Caster sugar - this recipe actually uses keto sugar-free caster sugar by Pure Via which contains 0 calories. It adds sweetness to the sour cream and salad. Alternatively, you could replace it with balsamic vinegar, but this would add color which I didn't want for the cream.

Olive oil - this is used to toast the minced garlic and also important for the salad dressing. Alternatively, you could use extra virgin olive for a more nutritious dressing as this is the part that won't be cooked.

Optional Ingredients

Brown sugar - if using a plain leftover pork roast loin, add a tablespoon at the same time as adding the spices in a frying pan, then a tablespoon of water, chicken broth, or orange juice for sweetness.

Light soy sauce - if not using sea salt on the salad dressing for balance, then I will usually use a few dashes of soy sauce.

Cotija cheese - often carnitas are topped with this broken, crumbly, native cheese. If you can't find it, then you could use feta cheese, goat's cheese or our favorite way is to use parmesan shavings.

🔪Equipment

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• Frying pan
• Mixing bowl - or large pot for mixing and serving your pico de gallo (the salad)
• Lemon juicer
• Chopping knife
• Chopping board
• Measuring spoons
• Cheese grater
• Salt and pepper grinder

Please see the printable recipe card with exact ingredient quantities, nutritional daily values, and instructions at the bottom of this post.

📋 Instructions

Tip: to make sure the salad has a good coating of dressing, you could place it in a freezer bag or storage container and give it a good shake.

👩‍🍳 Substitutions

The great thing about this carnitas is that you can make it a little different each time you make it. So here are a few substitutes you can make if you have special dietary needs.

• Salad - if you don't want to chop salad into really small pieces, for quickness, you could use a ready-mixed bag.
• Wraps - choose gluten free tortillas, try gluten free leftover pork tacos, egg noodles, or for keto, you could make lettuce wraps with baby gem slices or make carnitas bowls
• Lectin free diet - swap the black beans for pine nuts soaked in water before stirring them into the meat for a bean-like texture
• Vegetarian - it's easy to swap any cut of pork for jackfruit, which resembles pulled pork, veggie mince, or even sauteed mushrooms

⚖️ Variations

Depending on who you are feeding, here's a few of the best ways to personalize lots of leftovers, or a few simple ideas to try for next time!

• Spicy - add some Siracha sauce, hot sauce pepper, or banana peppers if you want some extra heat
• Deluxe - add some enchilada sauce, salsa verde, and queso dip for a variety of sauces
• Kid friendly - there are many creative ways you can serve it, like making cookie cutter toasts to add more fun while eating and only use a small amount of chilli or omitting and serve with tomato sauce

You may prefer using starting this recipe with my unofficial Slimming World pulled pork recipe and no-cook tomato salsa.

❄️ Storage

If we have any leftovers, then I combine any pork chops and salad in an airtight container together to enjoy burrito bowls the next day for even easier weeknight dinners.

And this gets stored in the fridge for up to 3 days. As for the limed sour cream, I also store this in the fridge for up to 5 days. I don't recommend freezing the salad as it will be unpleasantly mushy.

💡Top Tips

• The next time you make slow cooker pulled pork, make a double batch for planned leftovers!
• To risk serving dry leftover pulled pork carnitas, I recommend only heating over medium heat, or adding a tablespoon of chicken stock to the pork while heating up.
• If this is a last minute meal and you haven't cooked your pork, then your best friend is cooking your pork in a pressure cooker like an Instant Pot, which is 3 times quicker than slow cooking
• Don't forget, you can make carnitas tacos using taco shells instead
• If you have leftover tortillas, you can make easy nachos by cutting them up into triangles, drizzle with oil and bake in the oven on a tray for 7-10 minutes at 200c/180c fan/400F until crispy.

❓FAQ

➕ More Leftover Pork Recipes

All of these delicious recipes will be quicker already cooked pork:

• Swap chicken for a pork pot pie
• Low fat Sloppy Joes
• Another great way is making Chinese pork yuk sung lettuce wraps
• Keto Thai pork curry
• Shredded pork and bean cottage pie
• Leftover pork and stuffing pie
• Any leftover meat curry
• Leftover Christmas pork soup
• Pulled pork leftover pasta frittata pizza

📖 Recipe

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