Tacos Al Pastor - Slow Cooker
This easy, cook all day, delicious recipe takes an inexpensive pork butt to new heights. The sweet pineapple melds with the spicy chilies to create a fabulous dish your whole family will love. Perfect to bring to a party or pot luck too.
Ingredients
- 1 3-4 pound pork butt roast or pork shoulder roast
- 1 can diced pineapple
- 1 large Onion cut into quarters
- 2 large chilies in adobo
- 1 tablespoon adobo sauce
- 4 cloves garlic roughly chopped
- 1.5 teaspoons dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 2-3 tablespoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 12 small corn tortillas or flour tortillas
- 1 bunch cilantro
- 1 batch pickled red onions optional - see blog for recipe
Instructions
The Pork
- Trim any large pieces of fat from the pork butt roast (or pork shoulder). I love this cut of pork for a slow cooked dish - either in the slow cooker or for a long braise. It gets lovely and tender the longer it cooks
- Remove the bone, if there is one, and cut the pork into 1inch cubes and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper
- Place the pork cubes into the slow cooker
The Sauce
- Save a 1/2 cup of pineapple chunks from the can and place the rest of the can (including the juice) into a blender
- Place the quartered onion, 2 chilies in adobo, the tablespoon of adobo sauce, 2-3 tablespoons of chili powder, 4 cloves of chopped garlic, 1.5 teaspoons of oregano, 1 teaspoon of cumin, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper into the blender
- Blend the ingredients until the sauce is smooth. Taste and adjust the seasonings - you may want to add more chili powder or chilies in adobo. The sauce should taste fairly spicy as it will mellow as it cooks all day
- Pour the sauce over the pork pieces in the slow cooker and stir to combine
- Cook on low for 6-8 hours - until the pork is fork tender and falling apart. It smells so good!
- Remove the pork from the sauce and shred with a fork
- Add a few spoonfuls of the sauce to the pork to moisten and add flavor. I don't put the pork back into the slow cooker as it typically has more fat than I like
- Serve on warm tortillas with pickled red onions (optional), cilantro and the remaining pineapple chunks. So yummy!
Made this dish today in a pressure cooker for 1 hour as opposed to the slow cook. It was delicious.
Thanks Maggie!
Great tip! I love my pressure cooker too – the best of slow cooked food, super fast.
Thank you
Hi Maggie,
Stopped in again for this recipe. Making it for the family tonight. So good, thank you!
Joan xx
So glad, Joan – I’m making it again tomorrow too – lots of comings and goings this week, so it’s a perfect fit – I’ll up the spice this time though for the college boys