Best pork carnitas with pickled onions and guacamole (Instant Pot, slow cooker, or oven)

These Instant Pot pork carnitas are my new favorite easy dinner recipe. There are many reasons why I love them.

First, it makes a lot of food. It’s truly a leftover lover’s dream! 

I use a bone-in pork shoulder. The smallest size I’ve been able to find is about 7.5 pounds, and very little of that is bone. That means this recipe makes about 7 pounds of meat! Sometimes I freeze half of the already-cooked meat because it’s a lot for two people to consume. Fortunately, it reheats well after being frozen.

Tip: This cut of meat runs about $3 per pound when it’s not on sale (I should specify this is the price in central Indiana), but every few weeks, local grocery stores will have it on sale for 99 cents per pound. That is an incredible price for this volume of meat! Last time it went on sale, I purchased and made two pork shoulders, and I froze the meat from one of them.

You can make this recipe a variety of different ways—Instant Pot, slow cooker, or oven. I made it in the Instant Pot. You all know by now how much I love my Instant Pot. 

Recently, I was listening to a podcast with author and New York Times food columnist Alison Roman, and she dissed the Instant Pot. She said something like you don’t feel as connected to the food because you don’t spend all day smelling it and tending to it. And while I wish I had the time to do that with every meal I prepare, it isn’t feasible.

Okay, so back to the recipe. I realize the cooking time seems like a really long time. You’ve probably never seen such a long Instant Pot cooking time. But keep in mind, this is a big piece of meat. And you want it to be super tender and fall off the bone. You could cut it up into smaller pieces, and it would cook quicker that way if you’re strapped for time. If you go that route, I would change the cooking time from two hours to about one hour.

I like to serve the carnitas with pickled red onions and guacamole, so I will include my favorite recipes for those as well.

NOTE: If you don’t own an Instant Pot, here are options for alternate cooking methods. For a slow cooker, cook for about 8 hours on low or 5 hours on high. Remember, you want the meat to be super tender and fall off the bone. For the oven, roast it at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for about 4 1/2 hours.

Pork Carnitas

Ingredients

• 7-8 pounds bone-in pork shoulder, excess fat trimmed off
• 2 Tablespoons garlic powder
• 2 Tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 Tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 Tablespoon chili powder
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 2 oranges sliced in half
• 1 lime sliced in half

Directions

1. Combine garlic powder, cumin, oregano, chili powder, dried basil, ground coriander, and paprika in small bowl.
2. Rub spice mixture evenly over the pork and place in Instant Pot
3. Squeeze the juice from the oranges and the lime over the pork. Place the oranges and lime pulp side down on top of the meat.
4. Set the Instant Pot to cook on high pressure for 2 hours.
5. Once it’s done cooking, allow the pressure to release naturally.
6. Remove the pork from the Instant Pot 
7. Shred the pork using two forks and remove it from the Instant Pot and shred the meat using two forks.
8. Preheat the broiler. Arrange the meat in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. Place the meat under the broiler for about 3 to 5 minutes. Monitor it to make sure it doesn’t burn.
9. Pour the cooking juices into a pot and boil for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until the liquid is reduced to about 1/2 cup.
10. Pour the reduced cooking liquid over the pork and toss to coat.
11. Serve pork on tortillas with your favorite toppings, like pickled red onions and guacamole

Pickled Red Onions

Ingredients

• 1 red onion, peeled
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon sweetener of choice (sugar, honey, agave nectar, etc.)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Directions

1. Slice the red onion as thin as you can. I recommend using a mandoline.
2. Stuff the red onions into your container of choice. I like to use a mason jar.
3. In a pourable large measuring glass, heat up water to the point that it’s nearly boiling, or about 1 1/2 minutes.
4. Stir in apple cider vinegar, sweetener, salt, and red pepper flakes.
5. Pour pickling mixture over sliced onions. Make sure they are immersed in the liquid.
6. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour prior to serving.
7. They will last in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

Best Guacamole Ever

Ingredients

• 2 ripe Hass avocados
• 2 teaspoons lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
• 2 Tablespoons cilantro, chopped
• 1/4 – 1/2 jalapeño, including seeds and finely chopped

Directions

1. Cut the avocados in half and remove the pits
2. Scoop the flesh of the avocados out of the rind and place in a medium bowl.
3. Pour lime juice and salt in bowl with avocados.
4. Mash it all together until just combined (don’t over mix!)
5. Fold in the red onion, cilantro, and jalapeño (once again, don’t over mix!)
6. Taste the guacamole and adjust seasoning if necessary

Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken and Vegetables

So, let’s discuss slow cookers. Everyone knows slow cookers are wonderful. You can use them to make extremely simple or gourmet dishes. My first solo experience with a slow cooker was my freshman year in college. I would make sweet potatoes in the slow cooker all of the time. Pretty much that’s all I ate ever. I realize this sounds peculiar, but have you ever made a sweet potato in a slow cooker. It is really delicious.

Oftentimes, I think people associate slow cookers with casseroles and soups. It’s true, those are great ways to use them, but you can use them for a whole lot more. And that’s what I wanted to showcase in this recipe. But first, let me share some slow cooker tips.

The flavor is in the brown

Do yourself a flavor (I hate that joke but I couldn’t resist) and spend 4 minutes of your day browning your meat before putting it in the slow cooker. You’ll be rewarded with an incredible depth of flavor in the finished dish.

Don’t peek!

Keep that lid closed! I know it’s tempting to get a sneak peek and a quick whiff, but the heat will escape from the inside and it will take a while for the temperature inside the slow cooker to return to what it was.

Don’t overfill it

Slow cooking works when the heat can properly circulate inside the slow cooker. If it’s too crowded, your ingredients will cook unevenly.

Put your vegetables on the bottom

Vegetables require more time to cook than meat, so placing them at the bottom will ensure they cook quicker.

Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken and Vegetables

Ingredients

• 6 to 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 16 ounces baby carrots
• 1 sweet onion, quartered
• 16 ounces red potatoes, quartered
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
• 1 head broccoli

Directions

1. Brown chicken thighs on stove 2 to 3 minutes per side, set aside
2. Drizzle a little olive oil in your 5-6 quart slow cooker and spread garlic on bottom
3. Add layers of the onion, carrots, red potatoes, and chicken thighs
4. Sprinkle rosemary and thyme on top
5. In small bowl, combine brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, and red pepper flakes and pour on top of chicken thighs
6. Cover slow cooker and cook on low for 5 hours or high for 3 hours
7. Add broccoli on top of chicken thighs, and cook for another hour
8. Garnish with more fresh herbs and slivers of almonds if desired

Double-Duty Dinners, Featuring Buffalo Chicken Macaroni & Cheese and Pizza

This is a sponsored post by Challenge butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible!

As much as I love to cook, I don’t necessarily like to spend every night in the kitchen preparing dinner. When I’m hungry, I want to eat now. If you feel the same way, one of the best ways to make sure you have food available is by meal prepping. There are different forms of meal-prepping, but one of my favorite ways is making “double-duty dinners.”

The idea behind double-duty dinners is to prepare one big meal with plenty of food so you can transform the leftovers into an entirely new meal the following night. This is great for picky eaters who don’t like to eat the same thing for dinner every single night.

The Buffalo Chicken Macaroni and Cheese featured on this blog post is a great recipe to transform into a double-duty meal. Normally, if I was preparing this meal for just one night, I would only use about one pound of chicken. But since I plan to use the leftovers for another day, I should double the protein and add about two pounds of chicken (or more) to the slow cooker. When the chicken is done, I remove all of it, shred it, and return just half of it to the slow cooker.

I store the other half in the refrigerator for my dinner the following day, which I can use to make salad, pasta, or pizza (as you’ll see below)!



I chose to make pizza as the other half of this double-duty meal because it used a lot of the same ingredients as the Buffalo Chicken Macaroni and Cheese. The only new additions were pizza dough, tomato sauce, and butter. So not only did I save time, but I also saved money. Now I don't need to go out and buy ingredients for an entirely new meal!

Some other ideas for double-duty dinners that I featured in the segment on FOX59 are:
Pulled pork used to make sandwiches the first night and pork quesadillas on the second night.
Fish, specifically tilapia, use to make a rice dinner on night one and fish tacos on night two.

One thing I need to point out — it’s important to always use the best ingredients available. That’s why I used Challenge cream cheese in the macaroni and cheese and Challenge butter in the pizza. I choose Challenge over every other brand because I know there are no hormones, additives, or fillers in their products.The taste is also superior to other brands because they use real cream.

NOTE: In the recipes below, I’m posting the regular version, not the double-duty version, in case some people saw the picture of the pasta and scrolled straight to the recipe. But if you want to make the double-duty version, just double the amount of chicken as discussed earlier.



Buffalo Chicken Macaroni and Cheese
Yield: Makes about 8, 1-cup servings
Ingredients

• 1 pound chicken
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 3/4 cup buffalo sauce
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 pound macaroni pasta, uncooked
• 4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
• 1 cup milk
• 4 ounces Challenge cream cheese
• Green onions and blue cheese for garnish, if desired

Directions

1. Add chicken, chicken broth, buffalo sauce, garlic powder, paprika, pepper, and salt to slow cooker. Stir until combined and cook on high for 2 to 3 hours. (Could be more or less time depending on your slow cooker. My chicken was done right at 2 hours)
2. Remove cooked chicken from slow cooker, shred, and return to slow cooker.
3. Add pasta, cheddar cheese, evaporated milk, milk, and cream cheese to slow cooker.
4. Mix and cook on high for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until pasta is cooked
5. Garnish with blue cheese crumbles and green onions if desired and serve 

Buffalo Chicken Pizza
Yield: Makes 1 pizza
Ingredients

• Pizza dough
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup tomato sauce (depending on whether you like a lot of sauce or not)
• 3 Tablespoons buffalo sauce
• 1 tablespoons Challenge butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 pound chicken, chopped
• 1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles
• Green onions for garnish, if desired

Directions

1. Preheat oven to the specified temperature for your pizza dough (I set my oven to 425)
2. Combine tomato sauce, buffalo sauce, butter, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic powder and spread on uncooked pizza dough
3. Add half the cheddar cheese on top of the sauce and layer it with the chicken, the rest of the cheddar cheese, and the blue cheese crumbles.
4. Bake pizza for about 14 to 18 minutes — keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn!
5. Remove from oven, garnish with green onions, and serve

Recipe adapted from the Food Network

Taco lasagna

This is a sponsored post by Challenge Butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible!

Tacos are the best. First of all, they’re delicious (that’s a given), and secondly, there’s an infinite variety of tacos. Every part of the taco is customizable: the shell, the meat, the veggies, the sauce, the cheese, etc.

That being said, the way you eat tacos should also be customizable. A lot of people love finger foods, but sometimes it’s more convenient (and less messy) to eat with a knife and fork.

So for Taco Tuesday, I decided to make taco lasagna! Taco lasagna combines all of the flavors of tacos into a comforting casserole.

Taco lasagna reheats well, freezes well, and it’s great to pack for lunch.

The recipe below is my favorite combination of tortillas, salsa, and meat, but just like regular tacos, you can customize it however you please.

And if you’re like me and ask, “Can I make this in the slow cooker?” about everything, I have good news for you! You can absolutely cook it in the slow cooker! Just remember that you still have to brown and drain you meat before assembling it.

You’ll notice in this recipe that I added cream cheese. The cream cheese prevents the taco lasagna from getting soupy while it is cooking. Challenge Dairy actually makes salsa-flavored cream cheese that is perfect for this dish! It blends really well and adds an extra depth of flavor.

Taco Lasagna

Yield: Makes about 10 servings

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 pounds ground beef
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 cups salsa
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 4 ounces Challenge cream cheese
• 1 (1 ounce) envelope taco seasoning
• 6 (10 inch) tortillas
• 3 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit
2. In large skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute longer. Drain beef mixture.
3. Return beef to skillet and stir in salsa, beans, cream cheese, and taco seasoning; continue to stir over medium heat until cream cheese has melted into mixture.
4. Place two tortillas in a greased 13x9-inch baking dish.
5. Spread 1 1/2cup meat mixture over tortillas and sprinkle 1 cup cheese on top.
6. Repeat layer two more times.
7. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Cheese on top should be completely melted.
8. Let stand for 10 minutes and serve.
9. Dish stays good in refrigerator for up to 3 days.

*Note: You can also make dish in slow cooker by cooking on low for 2 to 4 hours.

Recipe loosely adapted from Taste of Home

Slow Cooker Orange Chicken

Do you know that song, “Anything you can do” from “Annie Get Your Gun”? To be honest, I’ve never seen the musical or the movie. BUT I know the song well because a few years ago (and by a few I mean 15 years ago) I was traveling in the car with my baby cousin and the only thing that would make him stop crying was that song. So we listened to it for THREE hours. Clearly it still haunts me.

Anyway, the song has been my mantra lately because I’ve been really into recreating my favorite restaurant recipes! (Example: Asian chickenlettuce wraps) This week I decided that I would recreate orange chicken! And not just recreate it – I decided to recreate it in the slow cooker!

While reading the ingredients in this recipe, you make think to yourself, “Hmmm I wonder if I can make any substitutions.” The answer to that is yes, BUT I cannot promise the results will be the same! You see, I spent a lot of time working on this recipe, and there were trials and errors. The recipe below is the exact combination of ingredients that I think works the best. So if you make substitutions, I’m sure it will still be tasty, but I can’t promise it will taste the same.

IMPORTANT: As you can see in the recipe directions, you use half of the marinade to, of course, marinate the chicken, and then you use the other half to make a sauce once the chicken is done cooking. So make sure to split the marinade in half! Once the marinade has touched the raw chicken it can no longer be used as the sauce.

Slow Cooker Orange Chicken

Yield: Makes about 4 servings

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast
• 3/4 cup orange juice concentrate
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup Sriracha
• 2 Tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 Tablespoon grated fresh ginger
• 1 Tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon orange zest
• 1 Tablespoon corn starch

Directions

1. Cut chicken into bite-size pieces; set aside
2. In a bowl, whisk together orange juice concentrate, soy sauce, rice vinegar, Sriracha, minced garlic, fresh ginger, brown sugar, and orange zest.
3. Place chicken in large Ziploc bag and pour 1/2 of marinade over chicken. Seal bag and marinate in refrigerator at least 1 hour but preferably overnight.
4. Put other half of marinade in sealed container and refrigerate for later. This will be your sauce.
5. Once chicken is done marinating, dump entire Ziploc bag of chicken with its marinade in the slow cooker. Cook chicken on low until chicken is no longer pink (in my slow cooker, chicken is done after about four hours).
6. When chicken is done cooking, take other half of marinade out of refrigerator.
7. Put marinade in pan and heat on stove to boiling at medium-high heat.
8. In small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and 1 tablespoon water; add to sauce on stove top and boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. The sauce will thicken significantly.
9. Remove sauce from heat and add chicken from slow cooker to sauce and combine. Serve over rice or quinoa and sprinkle green onions and sesame seeds on top.

Slow Cooker P.F. Chang’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Confession: I ate more food over the holidays than I think I’ve ever eaten in my life. And by holidays I mean Halloween through the New Year… plus a few days. I know I should say “everything in moderation blah blah blah.” But sometimes binge eating is good for the soul. And I do not regret it one bit!

But now that it’s the New Year, I should probably start to control my eating. So I’ve been trying out some new healthy recipes.

Personally, I think two of the most important things to strive for when trying to eat healthy are convenience and “knockout” taste (I couldn’t think of a better word than “knockout” and I went kickboxing this morning so that’s where that came from). This is what I mean by that – no one will want to continue to cook healthy meals if they’re difficult or if they’re bland.

Keeping that in mind, I decided to make slow cooker Asian chicken lettuce wraps!

I’m a big fan of P.F. Chang’s lettuce wraps and I knew I could make a slow cooker version, so that’s what I set out to do. P.F. Chang’s uses ground chicken in their lettuce wraps, but I prefer the way chicken breasts cooks In the slow cooker, so that’s what I used. The chicken breast shreds easily after cooking in the slow cooker and it combines well with the sauce.

Another thing to note is that the chicken gets it’s “knockout” taste from the Sriracha and the freshly grated ginger.

Can you omit these ingredients? Yes, but I can’t promise you’ll have the same “knockout” taste.

Can you substitute regular hot sauce for Sriracha? Yes, but the taste will be slightly different. Sriracha is a bit sweeter and more garlicky (garlickier?) than hot sauce or Tabasco sauce.

Also, if you don’t like lettuce, you can serve this chicken over brown rice instead, and it will be equally tasty.

Slow Cooker P.F. Chang’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Servings: Enough for about 12 lettuce wraps

Ingredients

• 2 pounds chicken breast
• 1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup hoisin sauce
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons Sriracha
• 1 Tablespoon freshly gated ginger (or 1 teaspoon ground ginger)
• 1 head big leaf lettuce (you can either use bibb lettuce, Boston lettuce, or butter lettuce)

Optional toppings:

• Chopped green onion
• Shredded carrots
• Roughly chopped peanuts
• Toasted sesame seeds
• Pineapple
• White or brown rice

Directions

1. Place chicken breast, red bell pepper, yellow onion, hoisin sauce, garlic, soy sauce, Sriracha, and ginger in a slow cooker. Cover and cook on low heat for 3 to 4 hours until chicken is tender and fully cooked.
2. Shred the chicken and combine with the sauce left in the slow cooker.
3. Separate leaves from head of lettuce.
4. To serve, place 1/4 cup chicken filling on top of lettuce. Add optional toppings like green onion, shredded carrots, peanuts, sesame seeds, pineapple, and brown rice.

NOTES

You can make this with ground turkey, ground chicken, or ground beef instead.

Recipe adapted from Cooking Classy.