At less than $5 per roast, check out how much shredded pork I have for Tex Mex night! This easily fed our family of four, plus we had leftovers for another meal. This is prior to browning the meat in the oven.

First things first, have you entered the $50 Costco cash giveaway I posted earlier this week? You really should. Costco is full of all sorts of awesome, not to mention the best assortment of free food samples around. You could grab lunch in there…I’m just sayin’.

This is the second in a series of posts I’m writing to help spread the word about the great selection of pork at Costco AND the versatility and ease of cooking with pork just in time for the holidays. And judging by the Christmas decorations already on display at our local Costco, it is NOT too early to be thinking about Christmas!

I headed to Costco yesterday to pick up some pork sirloin tip roast on sale for only $1.99/pound. These come in a four pack of individually wrapped roasts that are around 1.5-2 pounds each and I paid a little over $17 for four nice size roasts which is a great deal! I love that I can make one or two of these sirloin tip roasts (or more depending on the crowd I want to feed) and then freeze the rest. I’m not the best meal planner in the world, so it’s nice to have an emergency cut of meat (or in this case three) in the freezer.

We love Mexican food and I wanted to make some carnitas shredded pork in our slow cooker for a healthy Tex/Mex dinner! I found a great recipe online but improvised a bit as I did not have salsa verde in my fridge as I originally thought. No salsa verde, no problem! I searched through my spices and the refrigerator and added some Pampered Chef Southwestern seasoning, a big dash of taco sauce, and a little bit of beer to the slow cooker mixture. This smells amazing cooking!

Here’s a link to the original author’s recipe from Monica at The Yummy Life

And here’s my improvised version. I loved being able to use my mom’s Belgium Dutch Oven she handed down to me.

Slow Cooker Carnitas Shredded Pork

Servings: makes 8-9 cups
Ingredients

1 (4-5 lb) lean boneless pork roast, fat removed, cut in 3-4″ chunks
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
1 teaspoon Southwest seasoning (I used Pampered Chef’s)                                                                                                                                          2 2 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup low sodium, fat free chicken broth
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup Mexican beer
1/3 cup or so taco sauce (I used Ortega)

Directions
Step 1: Pat pork pieces try with paper towels; sprinkle with seasoned salt. In Dutch oven over med-high heat, add canola oil and brown pork pieces on all sides. Remove pork and set aside; add chicken broth and deglaze the pan, stirring in the browned bits from the bottom.

Step 2. Place browned pork pieces in slow cooker. Pour on the chicken broth liquid that was used to deglaze the Dutch oven. Sprinkle on the black pepper; top with the garlic, beer, and taco sauce. Cover and cook on high for 3-1/2 to 4 hours or on low for 7-9 hours, until fork tender.

Step 3. Transfer cooked pork to cutting board and shred it using two forks; discard fat. Degrease the cooking liquid left in the pan.

Step 4. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spread out the shredded pork in a large shallow baking pan. Pour up to 3 cups of the degreased cooking liquid over the pork. Bake uncovered for 30 min. or until crispy pieces appear on top. Remove from oven and stir. Return to oven for 20 minutes or until crispy pieces appear again on top. Repeat baking, crisping, and stirring in 10-20 min. intervals until all or most of the liquid is gone from bottom of pan. For a moister meat, cook until approx. 1/4″ liquid remains on bottom of pan, stirring remaining liquid back into the shredded pork. For dryer/crisper meat, cook until all liquid has cooked away.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS:
This Carnitas Shredded Pork makes a great filling for tacos, burritos, fajitas, chimichangas, enchiladas or a topping for nachos.

Freezes and reheats well!

Disclosure: I’m being compensated for this blog post, which is being coordinated by one of my favorite mom-centric websites, The Motherhood. As always, all opinions expressed in this post are mine.